GR generations virtually finished
by Lexi2110
Summary: its done, needs a couple of touch ups here and there, perhaps if you wanted, you could message over some suggestions, i am on  under the name of Zeealex if you wanna pop down and say hi and this has its own topic started by "zeealice"


GHOST RECON: GENERATIONS

Over 100 years, things have changed in the 5th Special Forces, 1st battalion, D company

The loss of the most famous ghosts in history, say for instance. Who? You may ask. Scott Mitchell Alicia Diaz and someone close to me, She was presumed dead on December 28th 2013 due to a fire fight she couldn't contain, but she was far from dead. The fire fight only made her stronger, the bomb shrapnel only made her ready for more.

Her adopted daughter, Alex, was a shadow-net spy working for third echelon; she was one of their best. Alex gave birth to Sophie, my mother, and, well, you know the rest.

Are you clicking on yet?

Of course I was just a bog standard police repossession officer. It's new to the world, like I said. Allot has changed in the world over 100 years. I go around America and overseas repossessing stolen museum artefacts and precious materials from mansions and places alike. I have the rights to kill anyone who gets in my way, even when I'm not on duty.

But somehow when they found me, I felt so ashamed…

It all started in the mansion of a guy whose family coat of arms was stolen and I was giving it back to them. That's when I realised. Those bastards were back for more.

_Time to get into action Krissy, how hard can it be?_ I looked around frantically sizing the robbers up.

Guns: G709's by the looks of them. Armour: light nothing more than their clothes bar the one at the back, he is wearing a tactical load bearer. Target: the owner's safe, of course.

My eyes trailed curiously to an ornamental knife on the wall to my right. I could feel my face light up menacingly. Abruptly, but silently, pulled the knife off the wall and pulled it out of its scabbard, to reveal a shining blade. Like a predator. I moved in for the kill. My target: the guy at the back.

The knife pierced his back like it was piercing butter. I was lucky he didn't make a sound; I grabbed his gun and gently placed it down along with the dead body. Quietly, I took out the blade and took off his load bearer, and, of course I wore it myself. "Hey! Jenkins! We don't have all night, hurry up!" one thief shouted to the other. I froze out of shock with a quiet gasp, I was afraid they had spotted me. But the guy was just looking out of the window. However to my luck, he didn't turn any further. I let out a sigh of relief, moved towards the dead body, hauled him over my shoulder and hid him in the nearby cabinet. _Man! Someone's gonna get a nice surprise when they go in there_. I smiled at the thought of someone opening the cabinet and having a heart attack.

I pulled myself together and acquired the G709 rifle. Even though I had a gun in my hand, I didn't want to draw attention to myself. _Remember what mom taught you in air soft. _I slowly backed up behind a wall nearby and thought of a plan:

_Run in there, guns blazing? No. I would get myself killed. Well these bullets are high velocity, so why not make one ricochet. Yeah okay, why not? _

I peered around the corner to get a good count of how many thieves were there.

_Six of them, no more, no less. Damn this is gonna be hard! _

I threw myself back against the wall and prepared the gun. Once again I peeked around the corner. The sights of the gun met my eye I calculated the angle in my head. _45 degrees, no 50, ah! Just stick it at 47.5_. Finally I settled on approximately 47.5 degrees. I held my breath, hoped, and fired.

As I had wished, the thieves fell lifelessly to the floor. A smile crept onto my face and I moved out to confirm my kills. Bad move, really bad!

A surge of pain hit the back of my neck and my skin began to burn like fire.

_Well done Kristen you got caught, you proud now?_

My knees buckled, I fell to the floor. Was this poison? How did I miss these guys?

One man came toward me and put a gun against my head. "Count back from ten" he ordered

"Why?" I asked dazed and confused.

"Do it! Even if it is in your head!" he shouted I counted back from ten in my head

_10_

My head started to hurt I flinched, the sudden agony hit me like a rock.

_9_

I began to get dizzy. I could barely stay upright

_8_

I was losing it. I couldn't remember what I was doing

_7_

The man pushed his pistol further up against my head while another man examined me "that's her, take her to Bragg"

_4_

Wait I mean six arghh!

_5_

My eyes grew heavy, and my head hit the floor… well, that's what they told me.

Once again, my eyes opened, only to find myself in a pallid room with a doctor looking down at me.

"Good morning Kristen, how do you feel?" she enquired politely.

"Like crap, as ever" I replied numbly "hey how do you know my name?" I asked interrogatively.

"You're famous to us" she smiled, to which I looked at her weirdly "we aren't like those people outside of here. Famous means you have that ghost gene we need."

A man walked into the room. I recognized him from my travels in Texas. "I'll take it from here, dr. steins." He growled

"Hey I know you; you were in Texas a few weeks back." I declared

"Yeah I was. But did you realise I was following you?" he replied with a grin on his face. "us ghosts have been watching you from afar your whole life" he said "your mum is a member of the special forces, and has been for years, you had to have a guardian to look after you, your guardian was a ghost feeding us info on your life"

"But my mum still spent her time with me she used to play air soft and paint ball games with me, was that a form of training?" I asked

"No, but it helped a lot, she was spending time with you. She was happy for you to do what you wanted to when you grew up." He said defensively "but our commander wouldn't stand for it" he added.

"He wanted you to recruit me right?" I asked. My emotions were mixed; I was angry, happy and enthusiastic. Somehow even though I was trying to hide it, he knew I didn't feel right with all this. This six foot tall muscular and fit militant in his uniform had a heart, and a really nice face, with of course, couple of small battle scars.

"Yeah he did." he answered

"and what no consent from me? you could've asked you know." I argued trying not to raise my voice.

"hey dont look at me, I didn't do it, I've been here for the past week leading training." he responded. "listen, argue this out with command I wasn't there so I cant comment. All I can tell you is why we need you here" he said.

I looked up in a questioning way. "tell me then" I said.

The doctor just walked out as soon as I said it, not a word. It made me wonder if it was private business.

"Well I'll introduce myself, I am Captain Dave Stanton I'll be your team leader if you get into alpha team" he said allowing a smile to light up his face.

"_If…"_ I remarked trying to hold in a laugh. Instead, I just smiled back.

"well let's start" he sighed "your grandmother was Alex Burke no doubt, well it all started with her mother, well, adopted mother anyway but back on to the subject. Her mother was Jennifer Burke" he handed me a photograph of a woman standing next to a dark haired man. She was slender, her face had a weird scar on it but it obviously didn't matter to her as she was smiling, perfect teeth. I always wondered where I got those from, the guy standing next to her with his arm over her shoulder also looked really happy, a small scratch on his nose, but he also didn't seem to mind much.

"See that guy there" Stanton said pointing at the man I was just looking at. "He's your great granddad, Scott Mitchell" he proudly remarked.

"And I'm guessing the one next to him is Jennifer" I remarked.

"Yeah that's her all right."

"Why do I resemble her so much? I'm barely related" I asked, at this point I was very confused

"believe it or not, our oldies found ghost genes in a lab, one was labelled 'Burke', they only found it 22 years ago and they injected you with the genealogical 'data' as they called it, it's so they still have remnants of the old ghost looks that's why there is a resemblance. They where hoping for you to carry the 'military' side of the family too."

"Ah! what about you? You seem to have a lot of knowledge on her" I asked.

"She was my granddad's commander. he used to tell my dad stories about her. And my dad told me, some of them were unbelievable. One story stood out amongst them all though"

_(Mexico, December 28, 2013: operation: strong point_

_Jennifer and her squad had just been dropped at Mexico City Juarez airport. among captain Burke's team stood my granddad, Edward "Kozak" kachenko, her best soldier out on that field of battle. Her mission was one of the most dangerous missions to date: secure the airfield and take out any operational aircraft bar one, Air Force One. The reason why it was dangerous was guardrail 9 was playing havoc with the airfield's comms, artillery was firing at the airfield hoping for a hit on Air Force and a rebel special forces group was firing on the president's guards. One As soon as she went in past runway 6, she couldn't call in reinforcements or contact H.Q. but General Martin didn't know that, he thought it was out of range, no chance. She knew though. Jennifer and her team assembled and moved out together. Artillery struck them hard. the two leaders walked straight into one shell explosion. Burke and Kozak, Kozak was pretty much okay but Burke, she was hit hard by the shrapnel, her shoulder was immobilized by a large piece of metal , but okay she wasn't a person who couldn't feel pain, she was screaming in agony but quite rightly. Her face was bleeding like it was a waterfall of blood. But fortunately, she wasn't burned on her face, just her left arm but it wasn't bad. _

_Kozak ran to her aid, he saw how bad it was and called in a medic. "I don't need it" she said pulling the piece of metal out , "help me up" the captain ordered, Kozak grabbed her hand and pulled her up. Only to be forced back down again by bullets. She only just managed to get herself up. Swiftly, she took down at least twenty of them, maybe more. But Carlos Ontiveros had another trick up his sleeve, he couldn't let this ghost get away with this and live, he walked out into her sights, my granddad could remember her face when she saw him, angered, focused, deadly. He saw Carlos pull out a detonation device but what for? Carlos pushed the red button. Jennifer, and a woman named Leah Cohen, found out the hard way… the communications tower they were standing under, collapsed from above them. it was on the news for days after the whole rebellion had cleared up , a woman named Alicia Diaz helped rescue teams get the two soldiers out from the wreckage.) _

"And she survived?" I asked after he had finished his story

He knew I was interested in the whole story and wanted to know more "yes she did, the communications tower didn't hurt her badly and she was airlifted to hospital immediately afterwards." He replied smiling as if he was recalling his own memories.

"What about Cohen?" I asked once again.

"She got lucky; she only broke her leg and hit her head." He answered in one of those voices.

"Only? Who the heck is 'Diaz'?" I asked for the last time.

He smiled as, just on cue, a sniper walked through the door with a smile on her face. He gestured for me to look at her, so I did

_Man! Someone's been in a fight or two _

"If that's what you're thinking, yes I have, and I've just come back from one" she said smiling at me in a friendly manor.

I was impressed, very impressed, somehow though, she knew it was time to shut up. This is why I felt so ashamed I was just another girl to these people light brown hair quite tall and quite strong, brown eyes, that was me I didn't feel important I felt small and helpless. The young woman still had the sniper rifle in her hand it dwarfed her young and slender build but the armour she wore buffed her up a lot. even though she'd just come back from a fight she smelled fresh and she was clean apart from a splat of blood on her torso and a tear in her sleeve, leaving a slight scratch on her skin she looked great; fit, healthy and happy.

"She's looking' good for her age" I remarked to Stanton, he laughed

"No, that's Amy Diaz, she's rather new here we just call her 'lazer' she's proven herself as a precise sniper, just like your grandmother." He shook his head at me in a with a joking smile

"Oh my mom told stories about her when I was young both Alicia and Alex where amazing I remember her now"

"You do? Interesting, anyway I'll leave you two to get acquainted, see you on the training grounds, then after that battlefield simulations." Stanton remarked with a slight wave of the hand, the last thing I saw of him before the training was his muscular back as he walked away; I turned my head to lazer with a very worried look on my face.

"Ahh it's nothing to worry about, it's another word for the exam Davy just likes to worry people." Amy smiled "you'll be examined by Liza grey, one of our commanders"

Amy gave a gentle gesture for me to follow her "wanna explore fort Bragg?" she asked smiling enthusiastically

"Yeah sure" I replied getting up, Amy stepped out of my way and I walked out of the door, I waited patiently for her to appear from behind the doorway. Eventually she did, we turned left and started walking

My neck was in so much pain after what happened the night before; I rubbed it, to which Amy reacted in a sorrowful way I raised my eyebrow. At her she just shrugged and moved on.

We turned right down the walkway and began walking again. We saw a few soldiers on the way, all of them stared at me in disbelief, was it who I was?

one gazed at me "hey" he said, his voice was a gorgeous Lithuanian accent

"Hi" I said I feared I was blushing he turned to Amy with curiosity

"Is this who I think it is lazer?" he asked his handsome face lit up with question

the 6 foot 2 man towered over Amy's small body but he didn't intimidate her, she was happy with his presence, his head turned to me and he smiled with politeness. he was a gentle young man his face, scar free he looked no older than 25 wearing a heavy cotton trench coat and a shirt with a cute little stubble growing but it looked nice on him.

"Oh right Kristen, this is Drąsus Galinsky, Drąsus this is Kristen Burke, she's new here" Amy smiled not even a blush or nervous giggle from her, how does she do it?

"Good morning to you, Kristen" he greeted, _Kristen! Pull yourself together! think of fat ladies dancing! _I started laughing hysterically both Drąsus and Amy looked at me in a weird way. _Aah crap now look what you did you fool! _

"sorry, I just started thinking of fat ladies dancing, it makes me like this" I laughed Amy giggled and Drąsus followed after. Amy recovered from the comic moment and straightened out.

"that was kinda funny" she smiled "you on your way out?" she asked him with a light smile and gesture pointing behind her, at this point I was looking up at the ceiling and all around me awkwardly, trying not to turn my attention to Drąsus and Amy chatting

"why yes I am going to Starbucks do you want anything while I'm out" he asked looking at us both politely.

"no, I'm okay thanks for the offer though" I said he smiled appreciatively and looked to Amy.

"no thanks I got a mini fridge packed with cola, how long are you gonna be?" she asked with an eyebrow raised he began walking to the door before she said it.

"the drive into town takes about 20 minutes there and the lines at this time…" he looked at his watch and his face twisted in an 'it's not so bad' motion "aren't that bad so I'm guessing about an hour" he said in his ever so gentle voice, Amy smiled gratefully he slowly began to walk to the door

"Alright I'm gonna take Kristen over to combat training, we'll be outside the simulation room when you come back if you wanna talk" she smiled over her shoulder fiddling with the pistol grip on her AMP-ASR32.

The ASR32 was the 32nd edition of the Advanced Service Rifle the best sniper rifle In the world, also the most expensive and was, at that moment, only issued as a prototype to the repos and the ghosts, I'd researched a lot about it, it had a nice finish and the word LAZER engraved into its massive barrel. It was _her_ gun. She must have felt so lucky to have a gun like that especially made for her.

Before I knew it Drąsus was out to Starbucks and Amy was dragging me along the corridor ahead and up to a massive re-enforced door, it had a warning sign next to it reading:

"WARNING, WHEN LIGHTS SHOW SIMULATION IS IN PROGRESS AND MUST NOT BE DISTURBED"

I looked down a bit to find a massive red tinted light; it wasn't on. "aww damn is that the time?" Amy sighed dragging me to a standard sized door next to it "this is the equipment room were you kit out, Davy is in there and he'll show you around the different classes, you just have to find one that suits you." Amy said opening the door, I stepped into the room. Amy nodded to Dave and shut the door, I looked over my shoulder like a deprived child, I had a really bad feeling about this. Dave stood up and showed me to the armour section, there was a middle aged woman waiting for me there, she had a tape measure and she dressed like a hippy, no doubt she was a tailor, she walked up to me and lifted my arms up I gave a surprised look to Dave over my shoulder as she put the tape measure around my chest and noted the size down, Dave just shrugged his shoulders at me in an innocent way she moved down to my waist, I felt a little more comfortable now she noted it down a look of surprise hit her face but it faded rather quickly "what's up?" I asked I was worried about that look of surprise on her face

"You're skinnier than Amy" she laughed, how did she know Amy so well? I smiled and let out a short, quiet laugh. She turned me around and measured my back, shoulder and arm length, I was facing Dave now, he smiled at me and gave me thumbs up, to which I returned the favour "alright I'll have this torso armour done In a week and a half" she said to Dave.

"Okay, I've got some standard size armour she can wear for now" Dave said politely opening the door to let her out.

as soon as she went out he shut the door and walked to the standard armour section "follow me." He called over his shoulder I quickly joined him. he lifted some torso armour off the wall, it looked heavy. Behind it was women's under armour washed and stitched but I'm sure no matter how much they washed it they couldn't get the unnerving bloodstains off of it. He saw that I was freaked out by it all "don't worry; one of our girls had to use it on a mission before her own was ready. Our team got ambushed and she was seriously injured along with Amy. she's still recovering now, it wasn't long ago. The simulation doesn't do that damage to ya it leaves a mark once you're out if you are shot and my god does it hurt. but it only does that, it's never killed anyone." He said concerned that I may not join the ghosts after this 'simulation' "I'll be around the corner if you need me" he said handing me the armour I took it from his grasp and nodded at him, I tried letting out a smile but after what he said about this 'girl' it was awkward.

The armour was surprisingly lighter than I thought it would be, I laid it down on the bench in front of me and took my shirt off the moment I did, I found myself looking at that horrible scar made by a man who attacked me on my way home one day. I still remember him pulling out that knife and stabbing me with it, then he looked up at me, smiled and cut me open like a butcher gutting a pig, I was left for dead on the street corner, until a teenage girl found me and called an ambulance. I was lucky to be alive afterwards but sometimes, I wished it did kill me.

I claimed the under armour off the wall and geared up trying desperately hard to shake those thoughts out of my head.

I walked around the corner to find Dave sitting and waiting, patiently. "It Suits you." He grinned he had a full face helmet in his hand with a heads up display attached to it. "Here, there's a balaclava in it if you want it for extra comfort" he assured me. He pulled up the visor, took out the balaclava and placed the helmet to rest on my head, he then pulled the visor down. "comfy?" he asked

"uuhh, I guess?"

"Right, you're kitted out now we just need to get you a gun" he said walking over to wide selection of pistols and rifles.

Then I saw a gun I recognised, the G709, _my baby,_ I picked it up along with a rocket launcher, a pistol and some demo charges. While I was there I fixed a grenade launcher to the G709.

I nodded to him and he began fiddling about with wires from my helmet and attaching them to certain parts of my suit.

"hey Dave, you know that woman you told me about?" I asked in an uncomfortable way

"Yeah?" he said still pushing buttons on the controls and frequently looking up at the HUD's responses to what he did

"What's her name?" I enquired; at that point my HUD was displaying a progress bar with 'calibrating' above it

"Olivia Cohen" he smiled "why?" he then asked me looking up at the calibration progress bar

"Just wondering, is she nice?" I asked. Dave's smile broadened

"Yeah she's lovely, she's a member of alpha team as well, very enthusiastic. You wanna see her later?" he asked once again, looking at the progress bar, which was almost full

"Actually that would be nice, yeah"

"Drąsus is getting me a coffee so we can sit down and chat about how the first day of training went" he said, the progress bar filled up and disappeared, Dave looked back down at the controls and began pushing buttons again. He then looked over to his right to find a headpiece fitted with a HUD, he put the ear piece on and attached his heads up display to the rail on it "could you wire me up?" he asked handing me the wire for the radio I took it from his hand and nodded i pulled my visor down to get a good view from my HUD

"yes, sir" I said I walked around to his back to find his radio already resting in its pouch, my HUD began showing info of what end goes where "whoa" I gasped quietly my intentions where that Dave didn't hear me. I plugged the corresponding jack into the radio's side port I then grabbed the other end's jack and plugged it into the back of his earpiece, his HUD sprung to life and began calibrating

"nice job Kristen, no doubt the others are ready for us, let's go" he ordered picking up a SAW21 from the rack and running outside of the room suddenly a vertical selection menu appeared on the right side of my HUD with 5 names: Stanton, Diaz, Foster, Allen and Brown. A view point from the selected team mate (at that point it was Stanton) showed above it. A rank appeared next to each name as followed: CPT,1LT , SFC, SSGT and SSGT. Immediately below the names was the word CMMD it was available for selection as well. A box appeared with a woman in it, the CMMD section was highlighted as it appeared.

"Ah there you are. Hey Kristen; welcome to the ghosts, my name is Liza Grey I'll be examining you later on. And I must apologise for the aggressive capture yesterday evening." She said. the video was HD and she looked like a true leader, from what I saw, she was in the command room she had blonde hair tied back into most likely a bun. She also had green eyes behind wire frame glasses; they suited her quite well though. I recognized her face, I'm sure she was my foster parent.

I pushed the button Dave told me to use, and the CMMD section turned blue "yeah, it's no biggy I've had my fair share of pain that was like a prick in the finger compared to most things. But you could have just asked, this would've beaten my old job by far." I said confidently, I let go of the button and the CMMD section changed to its original colour, red

"oh, I see. Here at command, we didn't think you would come so quietly. That's why.

I see Captain Stanton has shown you how to use the HUD and cross communications." She said with a smile, she was certainly confident in the team's abilities and usefulness on the field.

I started walking around the corner and to the door I once again pushed the button "yeah, he showed me how to use it and he plugged me up" I said opening the door and turning right, I released the button. A team awaited my arrival, Amy waved at me, she was also wearing full face helmet with a HUD. I only recognized her because of the gun she was holding, the word 'LAZER' on the barrel gave it away. I waved back to her.

"I shall leave you to get acquainted to the rest of the team" Liza said before the video box disappeared. A group of large backpacks were resting against the door I didn't want to know what they were for. I saw blue diamonds appear over my team mates bodies looked at one of them, the name in the selection menu Brown, highlighted his section turned blue

"You okay?" he asked me, I saw through my visor that it definitely was Brown talking, he had a yellow stripe on his shoulder piece. And he was wearing a black beanie hat. He was a tall African American man with a small stubble and moustache growing. He looked about 25-30 years old. The section turned back to red as he stopped talking. He was a rifleman class judging by his M81 rifle and lack of rocket launcher

"Yeah, I'm just getting used to the interface." I replied "who's who?" I asked him politely

His section turned blue again "we all have different colours on our armour to signify who we are. I'm Jaden Brown, my colour is yellow, Joe Foster's colour is white, Mike Allen's colour is blue, Amy Diaz's colour is red and captain Stanton's colour is grey. You don't have a colour yet because your armour is standard issue" he instructed kindly,

I got a good look at the two men Jaden had pointed out. Joe foster was a young looking guy in his early 20's like me. the white stripe on his shoulder piece was pure and clean, his armour hardly looked used or worn out, he either wasn't there long or he took very good care of it. he also was the only soldier, bar me and Amy, wearing a helmet of some sort. He was carrying a SCAR 61 compact and he wore a large pack on his drop leg platform judging by the small weapon and large drop leg bag, he was a medic.

He realised I was looking at him, but he didn't turn his nose up. Instead he smiled and waved, I returned the favour.

Mike Allen, looked war torn, either that or he'd been in a bar fight not long ago. he had scars all over his arms and some on his head he looked about 30 to 35 but it could be his scars. the blue stripe on his shoulder piece had scratches on it. He was evidently a tough cookie, not one to be messed with. he was carrying an ARM62 heavy machine gun. His massive biceps showed through his sleeves.

"Are we ready guys!" Stanton called from the front of the line he was definitely ready for this himself; I wasn't sure what to expect. But I guessed I was ready.

"Yes sir!" the group answered.

"all right follow me to the training area!" he shouted, running down the hallway Diaz ran at the same pace next to him. Jaden ran by my side while Mike and Joe followed behind.

Dave opened a large door to reveal an open area fitted with walls, that was all I could see at that point.

"Burke, this here is the obstacle course hopefully you know what to do here, try getting used to taking cover at any opportunity you get with these walls first." Dave informed. "also get used to being the outrider too, if you are asked to check the area, this is what you will do." he added. "so, Burke check the area up ahead." he ordered. I nodded and ran up against the nearest wall I could see, and checked the coast.

"clear sir!" I informed.

"good, move up to the large wall. And I'll tell you what to do next." he ordered, I obeyed and moved up to the large wall, it wasn't a cover point that was for sure, it was climbable but that was it.

"all right, you are going to climb this wall as fast as you can, but there's a hitch, Mike and I are going to fire at you to add some pressure, because lets face it, if you are climbing a wall in the middle of a fire fight they aren't going to stop firing because you need to run away.

My eyes widened,

"what if a bullet clips me?" I exclaimed utterly shocked by his madness.

"yes, what if the enemy wants to kill you Kristen?" he said sarcastically, I sighed.

I strapped the G709 up to my rigging and stepped a few steps back for a run up, Mike and Dave prepared their weapons. I started running up towards the wall and immediately the two men started shooting at me. I leapt up, grabbed the top of the wall and threw myself over the edge. Thankfully I landed on my feet without a scratch.

"good job Kristen, the bullets were blanks by the way." Dave said down the intercom, I frowned.

"oh, now you tell me!" I puffed

"well if I told you before it wouldn't panic you would it?" he remarked.

The team climbed the wall and accompanied me, Dave smiled jokingly at me. I looked to my front to be met by low hanging electrowire, a new form of barbed wire, if you got caught in it, you wouldn't have time to call for help. You were killed instantly with one touch.

"okay what I want you to do here, is to either slide under it or go prone and crawl under it, both ways, there is a small chance you could clip yourself, and because of that, the punishment isn't deadly, we turned down the charge so it is just very painful so be careful. However that has only happened twice and that was because they tried the move that they didn't suit. To slide it, run up and jump in a forward kicking your feet out in front of you and try to get as low as possible and the momentum should carry you the rest of the way. That is the quicker way, or you can lie on you stomach and crawl under it which is slower, but safer so long as you dont look up. Pick your method, but do it quick, that's what your survival revolves around, quick and decisive actions." he said I nodded to him. I unstrapped my G709, knowing it would be more comfortable with it in my hands , got down on my front and crawled under the electrowire, not really confident in my abilities to slide under it. Once I was out, I stood up and waited for the other team members to arrive. Soon after, they stood alongside me. A deep entrenchment stood before me.

"down!" Dave ordered, i slung my G709 over my shoulder and we all jumped down into the trench. All of us looked over the field, a dummy was on the ground in front of me and artillery was firing blank shells into the ground nearby.

"over there you have a bleeder, it's basically a dummy that bleeds, go over there and medicate it. Joe will be on hand if you need him. We'll fire blanks at you again"

somewhat relaxed, I obeyed and moved out of my safe haven in the trench. I turned the bleeder over, Joe handed me some bandages, blanks were whizzing past my head. I felt a sudden sense of panic, I began shaking as I sat the bleeder up and wrapped the bandages around the bleeding area. A blank artillery shell landed nearby, frightening the living hell out of me. But I couldn't stop. I tied the bandage off and carried the bleeder back to the trenches. Amy patted me on the back and gave me a warm smile.

"great!" Dave exclaimed attaching something to my armour.

"what's that?"

"the painful punishment of leaving any target in the tunnel up for too long, it gives the sense of you being shot. Too many zaps and it will knock you out." my eyes widened once again. "this is where team commands come in, on your wrist-pad, you have various orders to give, push the order's button, and aim your gun to where you want us to go, then hit the select button. We will get the order and do as you ask. So go ahead. Try it in the tunnels."

I got my gun prepared and moved into the tunnels. The first target appeared, I shot at it and moved on as soon as it retracted. I moved Amy into a small opening in the wall and told her to cover my approach. 5 targets appeared, Amy shot down 2, I shot down 2. but as I engaged the other a shot of pain ripped through my stomach. Feebly I fell to my knees clutching my stomach I cried out in pain, another surge hit my chest, eventually Dave shot the target down and helped me up.

Throughout the tunnel I engaged targets and ordered a few of the team to check the coast and stick with me. As we reached the end of the tunnel, a tank awaited us, it's turret turned to face us and we all scampered to the nearest wall. I prepared my rocket launcher and got ready for allot of pain.

"get around the back!" Mike advised. I nodded to him. I sprinted between cover points until I was at a satisfactory hit point. But one problem, there was no cover there, the tanks turret was slowly closing on me. I aimed the rocket launcher at the back of the tank, I realised the barrel cap was still on along with the safety catch, I fumbled with both, eventually the rocket launcher was ready. I aimed at the back of the tank again, just as it had it's sights on me I fired, luckily no shots fired hit me. And the tank blew up. no one was manning the tank, it had sensors to fire at the one closest to it. Beyond the tank, there was a river we had to negotiate.

We all regrouped and waded through the river. Once we reached dry land again there was a large group of boxes stacked on top of each other blocking the road. Dave handed me a demolition charge.

"set the demo charge next to the boxes and meet us back here, that should be a safe enough distance away." Dave ordered, I reluctantly obeyed and set the charge next to the boxes. I ran back to Dave just in time as an explosion ripped the boxes away. I ran uphill to inspect whether the coast was clear. Far from it. A tank began firing at me. Shooting agony ripped through my abdomen once more and then through my leg. The sudden pain forced me to the ground, I was shaking like a leaf, I felt like I was about to die.

"Burke! Call in an air strike now! Then training is over!" Dave shouted.

Suddenly determination invaded my heart. I tapped the air strike button on my wrist panel. Knowing full well I couldn't get out of the vicinity in time, and that the rockets used were blank and the explosion, simulated. I pushed the select button on the tank.

An attack aircraft flew overhead and a missile hit the tank causing the simulated explosion to trigger, my whole body fell into a figurative pit of strain and suffering. I cried out for one last time before everything went blank.

As soon as I had recovered, it was back to the training grounds. The training was repeated every day for a week. every time I re-entered it, I got better, and varied my use of cover and weapons, until eventually I got so good, I wasn't hurt once by the so-called 'surge suit'. I even attempted sliding under the electrowire, I failed the first few times, having to go to the infirmary to treat my burns, but after a few attempts I successfully made it through. Along with feeling tougher, I had developed a better relationship with my team, it had become so strong I never wanted to leave their sides in training.

Then, came examination day...

"Alright when I open the door you will enter the drop ship standing in a line I will be at the back with Diaz, Burke and Brown you will be in front of me, Allen and Foster you will be at the front of the line, when I call your name you will jump and ONLY if I call your name, any unauthorized jumping will result in a punishment!" Dave shouted shouted unlocking the massive titanium doors we all got given large backpacks they were surprisingly light considering their size. I had equipped myself with the G709 and the rocket launcher for the examination, I felt more comfortable with those two.

Brown stood by my side. he was confident, I on the other hand, wasn't so confident. Captain Stanton opened the doors

"Go! Go! Go!" he screamed, we all ran into the drop ship and waited for Dave to call out our names I turned to Dave

"I thought you said this was a simulation" I remarked I was very confused

"You are, and you are about to drop 3,000ft to the bottom of the room." He answered smiling at me

"Okay, how do we get back up?" I questioned

"Helo lift, a helicopter simulation, it's actually a lift" he replied smartly, I nodded at him and turned back.

"Alright! Allen! Go!" Dave shouted to which Allen ran up to the edge of the drop ship and jumped off, 5 seconds passed "Foster! Go!" foster ran and leapt off the edge brown looked at me

"See you down there" he said. 2 seconds after, Dave shouted for me to go, I ran up to the edge and somersaulted off the drop ship, Diaz's section turned blue

"nice jump!" she said complimenting my somersault I fought the air resistance and reached for the speak button.

"thanks" I replied. As I was falling I was wondering why me and Amy were the only soldiers with full face helmets on, that's when I realised. We were women on the front-line, strictly it's still not allowed so the full face helmets are to hide our identities. But that was just a theory. It could have been to keep the wind out of our face.

The clouds cleared and I could see the battlefield, from my view it was Manhattan, ruined and bombed even though it was broad daylight the smoke and fog of war made it darker, I could see gunfire and tank explosions. Then my eyes turned to my HUD telling me to deploy my parachute, _ okay, I'm gonna guess it's that one! _I pulled a cord and my parachute successfully deployed, I circled down to the ground and gracefully landed. I took the bag off my back and unclipped my G709 rifle. While I waited, I began preparing the gun and surveying the battlefield, more cyan diamonds appeared on screen, Brown landed nearby and he ran over to my position once he was ready, Amy and Dave followed shortly after.

"Alright boys and girls regroup on me" Dave ordered Allen and foster joined us not long after he issued the order.

"this is Manhattan, 5 years from now, it's been attacked by an international terrorist group we have never come across before, they have hijacked tanks and planes and they will kill anyone that moves, we have other special forces units here at our aid. Here's how it's gonna work, me, Burke and Diaz will take the left section, Allen, Brown and foster, you'll take the right section, our special forces aid has the center secure and they are ready for orders. Move out when you're ready but move out together." He whispered looking at us all. He then looked at me and Diaz "let's go!" he shouted running over to his left, me and Amy were right on his heels. I looked up to find a terrorist group on the roof pinning down a Special Forces team nearby.

"Sir, enemy contact, on the roof, one o' clock" I informed down the radio, he gave a hold order and we all stopped. He looked at me and smiled

"Observant. Alright weapons free, take 'em out! Just so you know you can give orders too, the examiner needs to know if you have leadership skills."

"ah, okay, Amy, you take out the sniper Dave, kill the one with the 50 calibre, I swear If you miss he'll rip us to pieces." I ordered, it felt weird giving my own boss orders

"Okay, one more thing, if you die in the simulation, your unconscious in real life, think of the surge suit" Stanton replied, I shuddered at the thought of that dreaded suit. Amy already had the terrorist in her sights and Stanton was getting ready, I raised the scope of the G709 to my eye and focused on the two other terrorists

"Okay fire when ready," I told them. I pulled the trigger and the bullet left the barrel and into my targets before I knew it. The gunner manning the 50 calibre gun turned to face us, but before he could fire, Stanton had but a bullet through his head, and Amy had but a bullet in the sniper's heart. "Nice shots guys, okay sir, we can go now" I assured them, looking around for any hostiles. Dave gave the regroup order and once again Amy and I followed close behind. we found ourselves in a large alley shortly after moving on from our kills a large cylindrical piece of metal appeared from the far end of the alley and was getting longer and longer, until a body of a tank appeared. "Holy shit!" I gasped, the tank stopped and turned it's turret to us. I looked down at the arm controls on my right arm to find a button reading,

'Thermal schematic' I pushed it and my HUD began displaying various details about it, and what the crew inside were doing.

"Okay, Amy, use your sniper rifle to hit the top gun's gas chamber, then get Dave and seek cover." I instructed passing over the schematic view to her HUD using the comms. The turret's top gun began firing at us; luckily Amy managed to hit the gas chamber before any could hit us. she did what I told her and ran to cover with Dave. I looked over to my shoulder to see if they were in cover. Amy peeked around the corner and nodded at me. I unclipped the rocket launcher and slung the G709 rifle over my other shoulder, my HUD showed the weakest point on the tanks body and a suggested hit point, gingerly, I took the rocket launcher off of its sling and rested it on my shoulder. I raised its scope to my eye, a built in interface had selected the suggested hit point on my HUD and locked onto it, I hoped to god, that the tank would be rendered useless as I fired. The rocket volleyed straight into the side of the tank and blew a giant hole in its bodywork, the screams of the crew pierced my ears and one fell out of the tank in a massive ball of fire, no matter how much training toughened me, it never prepared me for such a sight. it made me feel a bit pitiful but at the same time it was their fault. I Clipped the rocket launcher back onto its sling and took out the G709 once again. Amy emerged from around the corner and Dave followed after her.

"all right, let's go we don't have long" Dave announced running toward the end of the alley. Amy and I followed him once more. We ran past the destroyed tank to find ourselves right in the middle of a vicious battle involving some U.N forces and this 'international group we'd never come across before'. I couldn't help but look at a woman screaming helplessly next to a dying civilian male

"sir! We have to help them" I shouted looking up at a group of terrorists closing on their position from my right.

"no Burke we have to help the U.N forces." he insisted pointing at a hijacked tank group headed for the U.N tanks.

"okay Kristen, take Amy and save her, I'll take on the tanks." he said. I nodded and handed my rocket launcher and its ammo to him.

I turned to look at the woman; the terrorist group were getting closer. one terrorist was aiming at her, quickly I shot him dead. "Amy! Get to suitable cover and pick off any adversaries I'll be there to cover you in a moment." I ordered. She nodded and moved to the edge of a building. She began shooting and killing any enemies that posed a threat.

I ran over to the woman, helped her up and guided her out of the engagement zone. Suddenly I caught sight of an enemy engaging her. "get down!" I shouted she ducked and the bullet hit me in the chest I grunted and engaged him, one shot, one kill. The pain in my chest was agonising, but bearable, I didn't feel any different other than that. So hopefully no internal damage was done I looked to the woman. "why are you a priority target?" I asked her.

"I don't know" she responded utterly shaken.

"okay, listen, keep your head low and get indoors anywhere you think is safe." I told her, she nodded and ran off. I moved in to assist Amy, she was patiently waiting for me, the job was done.

"done?" I quizzed

"yeah I think so. Are you all right, your chest..." she answered.

I looked down to see it was bleeding slightly "ah fuck! It should be okay, I'm still breathing. lets go." I said reloading my G709 and checking my surroundings before moving on.

But before long, I heard something, it sounded like a plane flying low. I looked up behind me to find a bomber flying nearby, it hadn't spotted us yet, thank god, but I had to act fast if it found us it would drop bombs in our direction. I looked to my left to find an abandoned building with it's door wide open. "Amy hide in the building quick!" I ordered she obeyed and entered the building checking her surroundings. I stood outside and targeted it so I could keep track of where it was before eventually moving indoors. I kept tracking it all the way until I was satisfied it wouldn't bother us. I exited the building and checked the coast. Clear. Amy followed me and we moved out down the alley together.

"Burke, this is Stanton. We need to level the terrorist's forward operations base but you have the demo charges could you get over to the way point I've passed over to you in the HUD and take it out?" he requested, a green square appeared in my HUD with the word 'destroy' in it.

"Alright, I'll be right over" I replied running back to where we engaged the enemy platoon before. Amy was right behind me, I ran across the battlefield effectively taking out enemies along the way and Amy taking out anyone I left out. We finally found the building Stanton had marked; I leaned against the wall and reloaded my rifle while I had the chance. Amy did the same on the opposite side. I counted back from three, on one we entered the building shooting and killing any terrorists who engaged us. "Cover me" I ordered Amy as I slung the rifle over my shoulder and pulled out a demo charge, she obeyed and kept an eye out for movement. I knelt down and entered the pass code on the charge; I placed it on a barrel of tank fuel inside the building and set the time for a minute "okay charge set, let's move out" i informed Amy, she waited outside the doorway for me and I followed her to a safe distance. Before I knew it, the building was up in smoke.

"Nice job Kristen, the extraction is at central park get in the chopper and the simulation is over." Stanton ensured. I smiled as the way point showed on screen.

"Roger that we are making our way to the chopper now" I replied making a gesture for Amy to follow. We ran through the city and towards central park it was gonna take a while, Amy had my back as we slipped through the winding urban streets. Throughout our short lived journey we engaged enemy snipers and soldiers. it was quite easy to slip through undetected, why aren't we using cloaks in this time-scale? Because they were abolished for unreliability and there were many reports of soldiers being burned by them. So they are currently being redesigned. That's what the news people told us anyway.

For now we just used our wits and guns, that's what these guys were good at doing, as for myself, I still need a little fine tuning.

"Burke, Burke! It's Brown here could you help us out! my team and a special forces tank squad are getting hammered by hijacked tanks and choppers!" he screamed down the radio, I was worried about him _hasn't Stanton taken these out yet?_

"Okay hang tight I'm coming!" I responded looking at Amy worriedly. I turned to were the HUD's arrows pointed to. "Sir, this is Burke I've gotta take a detour, Brown is in allot of shit with hijacked vehicles." I implied.

"okay Burke we'll get one of the nearby humvee17s to pick you up when you are done, he'll land you next to central park but not _in _central park." He acknowledged.

I sprinted towards the diamond with Jaden's name in it. Amy once again followed me there, we took out any threats along the way it took us 20 minutes to get to Brown's location but thankfully we got there in time. An enemy tank turned around the corner just as we arrived; it engaged a broken Special Forces tank I could see on my HUD that they were ready to fire. Then a furious explosion destroyed the Special Forces tank instantly Jaden was knocked off his feet by the shock wave "Burke hit it!" Mike shouted. the one problem was I gave my rocket launcher to Dave

I ran out in front of the tank to get a rocket launcher from a dead spec ops member, the machine gun began firing at me; the lucky sods hit my leg. As I fell, I saw an enemy RPG53 on the floor right next to me I reached for it, but that tank's gun was still at large and one bullet clipped my right bicep, I groaned at the pain. Foster saw I was in trouble, as did Brown. Foster moved in to fix me up "no stay back!" I ordered, he acknowledged and backed up behind the spec ops tank wreck, Brown ran to grab the rocket launcher. But Amy had disappeared. I looked back at the tank to find her ripping out a cable from the machine gun. A member of the tank crew opened up the hatch and aimed his pistol at her back "AMY LOOK OUT!" I screamed she turned around to look the crew member in the eye, three gunshots were heard, and both soldiers collapsed. "Brown don't hit it!" I commanded, picking myself up and brushing myself down, I acquired my G709 and limped towards the tank. There's _only one crew member? That's strange. _My HUD was displaying that no hostiles remained in the tank. As I approached, I heard faint coughing and Amy's chest was moving in sync with the sound. Someone firmly grabbed my shoulder, causing me to jump as I edged gingerly towards my critically injured team-mate. I turned around to find it was Joe

"I'm with you." He assured gently. I smiled weakly at him. Joe ran over to the tank and jumped onto it.

"Just bring her down for now you have a really vulnerable position there" I said to which he got her in his arms and brought her down he jumped up again and acquired her rifle. "Brown chuck a grenade in that thing, and Allen keep lookout, it's too quiet." I adjured both of them acknowledged and got to work.

"Burke" Joe called I turned around to face him "command would probably want you to do this for medical evaluation." He said handing me a knife, gauze and bandages. I knelt next to Amy and gave Joe my gun.

She had two deep bullet wounds in the top of her stomach and they were bleeding heavily

"Cover me" I ordered. He got up and looked around for enemies while I covered her wounds with gauze; she winced as I put it over the open area of her torso. I sat her up as gently as I could, she groaned in response to it. "Sorry buddy, it's just so I can put the bandage around you" I said wrapping the bandage around her, she flinched as I covered her wounds, I remembered training and tied wrapped the bandage securely 8 times before I cut off the excess piece with the knife and tied it off.

"Friendly Humvee17 on my one o' clock" Allen aroused. I put Amy's arm over my shoulder and gently lifted her to her feet, surprisingly she helped me out.

"That's our ride let's go" I replied Walking Amy towards it. My arm and leg was killing me but I soldiered on knowing that death won't wait. Joe moved onto my right hand side and offered to take Amy, I refused his offer politely

"You look pale Burke, you okay?" he asked

"Yeah I do that." I answered Amy began coughing again "could you take her helmet off? Give her some clean air to breathe" I requested. Joe lifted up the visor and took off the helmet. We got close to the Humvee; I left Joe with Amy as I was ordered by Dave to mount the machine gun.

"Everyone in?" the driver asked.

"Yeah" Brown answered. The Humvee began moving with a massive roar of the engine. I heard the sound of a chopper getting closer and closer

"Can you hear that?" I asked.

"Shit yeah!" mike answered. A volley of bullets invaded my sight as an enemy chopper appeared

"Holy shit, chopper! We might lose them if we take to the narrow streets!" I shouted unleashing a burst of bullets from the machine gun

"Roger that!" the driver responded making a sharp turn into the streets, luckily we were still heading for central park. I let out another burst from the machine gun at the chopper it answered with its own hail fire of bullets _ah fuck this burst crap!_ I let out a volley of bullets at the chopper. The chopper eventually began to smoke, and before long, it spun in to a building and exploded.

"Whoa! Great job Burke we are almost to central park now." The driver informed

"great!" I answered firing bursts at enemy troops lining the streets. 5 minutes of mad driving later, we were at central park.

"Alright this is as far as I can go" the driver insisted. Brown and mike got out of the truck and helped Joe with Amy.

"okay thanks for the ride" I said getting out of the Humvee he gave me thumbs up and we departed for the clearing "whoa what a dump!" I said looking at the state of central park; it was a small scale wasteland, only one tree stood up and there was no grass either.

I got Amy off Joe and we approached the chopper, "I'm good, I can walk from here" Amy said through her agony. I accepted her wish and let her go she walked alongside me and grabbed her rifle from Joe as did I.

We began strolling towards the chopper the CMMD section turned blue and Drąsus's face appeared in the video feed "now all you have to do is get on and wait until the chopper's right hand door opens then you can leave and roam around fort Bragg for a while"

"thanks" i replied "hey what are you doing in the command room?" i asked

"i work here, im your colonel" he informed, i was shocked by his answer, he was our colonel! weird

"so how old are you then i thought you were about 25?" i asked

he laughed "i'm 42, years old" he said, that shocked me even more than his other answer.

i got in the chopper and sat down, Amy sat opposite me, looking quite pale and still in pain. she was talking with the rest of the group quite happily though.

…..

My eyes suddenly grew heavy, I found myself curled up in the chopper, exhausted and, surprisingly, comfortable, I closed my eyes and let myself just dream.

What did I dream about?

_(I sat in my room on my computer playing on a combat flight simulator as I always did, I always wanted to be a pilot when I was younger, and I was talented when it came to the really complex combat flight simulators. Suddenly someone burst through the door, pushed the escape button on the keyboard and turned me around to face him, he had my attention but not in a good way no one ever interrupts me in a dog fight "are you Kristen Burke?" he asked his voice was gentle not threatening at all. I looked up through the eye holes and saw deep nothingness _

"_Yeah I am, why?" I asked irritably, he didn't answer, he stepped out of the way making room for another man with a baseball bat. He swiped the bat at me… holy crap!)_

I bolted awake to be gently forced back from hitting my head the top bunk of a bed, I looked to my side to see Amy looking at me, concerned. "What's up Amy?" I asked

"Well the good news is, is you scored 94 percent on the test so you're in the ghosts now." She said optimistically. "But Liza needs to see you, she says it's important, well, she needs to see us all but, it's your first assignment. she says it's a little petty one for now, we ain't leaving America"

"ah, what's with the concerned face?" I asked smiling weakly.

"we thought something had happened to you when you fell asleep on the chopper, Dave carried you to this little room and took off the chest piece and HUD, he was dignified enough to leave your under armour and trousers _on_ though"

i laughed at her last remark "right, so is this where i sleep?" i said looking around the room

"nope, your room is getting sorted out at the moment, anyway, Liza can get impatient at times so lets go" she said getting up out of her chair

"okay." i said shuffling out of the bunk bed and getting my balance. Amy opened the door and let me out we turned right and walked down a long corridor, as i walked with i remembered what i was going to do after the simulation.

"oh crap! i was meant to meet Olivia after the simulation." i remarked slapping my forehead.

Amy looked at me with an eyebrow raised, "no biggy we can see her after the assignment, Liza said the casualty rate is 0% so no one will die hopefully, do you know her?" she asked

"no" i replied, "Dave told me what happened", i said gesturing at the under armour;

"ah, so you know, i was there and it wasn't pretty, not pretty at all"

"didn't sound it, you're looking better from the last time i saw you." i observed she wasn't as pale but the she was still quite pain stricken by the looks. but she wasn't wearing uniform, she was wearing a pair of rocker-type jeans, a leather jacket and a pair of purple Dr Martens. considering the unique biker look, she still looked like Amy to me

"yeah, i dont really feel it though. it bloomin' killed. thanks for bandaging me up though, i felt better and a little more secure after that." she smiled.

"why aren't you going in armour?" i asked confused by her outfit.

"the assignment doesn't require us to wear any armour not that we know of anyway" she shrugged.

Dave stepped out of a room in his own clothes too. he was wearing a fitted blazer and a smart pair of pants, topped with a pair of black shoes he straightened himself out and assumed a rather authoritative role. not one that threatened me though as he had a broad smile on his face as soon as he laid eyes on us two. he followed us to Liza's office.

when we got there, we opened the door to which Liza turned around "ah! you're awake, i was beginning to think Amy had nodded off herself" she laughed, she approached me and rested her hand on my shoulder "it's good to see you again Kristen" she said smiling at me. Liza turned around to bring up a statistic of my house for some reason. I'd come to the conclusion that she definitely was my foster carer.

"so it is you then?" i remarked confidently and curiously

"the one and only!" she called back turning around and chucking me, Amy and Dave a drink "you all look thirsty" she said.

i opened the drink and took a sip, it tasted quite weird, like an energy drink only more sugar.

"anyway, Kristen. this is a mission that requires you to go home and get your stuff, anything you need or want, the room you'll be staying in is big enough to fit a majority of your things in. simple mission really, Amy and Dave will accompany you in a truck."

"hardly a mission, but what do i say to my friends?" i asked oddly, she shrugged.

"it's up to you, but keep it subtle wont you?" she inquired in a mother-like tone i actually fell for it;

"yes mothe- i mean boss" i sighed, we all laughed at my mistake, Amy was practically on the floor laughing while Dave had his head in his hand giggling Liza was in tears laughing. "that cheered you up" i said looking down at Amy, she soon ended her bout of laughter and straightened up

"sure did" she responded. "i think we better get going, we don't wanna hit traffic on the way down to Indiana" she said opening the door

"what traffic?" i said sarcastically, Dave just nodded in false approval to what we were saying. judging by his face he had never gone to Indiana before. we walked out to the garage, Amy scanned her eye in the retinal scanner and the door opened up to reveal a rather impressive arsenal of cars Aston Martins, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and an old Saleen S336 truck, Amy pulled out a key fob and pushed a button the old Saleen's indicator lights flickered on and made a rather loud beep.

"ugh not Old Rosie?" Dave Groaned, Amy frowned and pushed a button on the fob to which the truck's door opened out violently hitting Dave in the face, me and Amy giggled at his pain "hey that wasn't funny!" he insisted with a smile i straightened up and held back my smile as i got in the truck next to Amy, Dave slid in next to me shortly after.

"dont hate the truck" she responded shutting her door "to Indiana" she remarked starting the truck, and with a massive roar of the engine, we were off back home. well for me anyway...

we took it in turns to drive so the other one could sleep Amy commented on the stunning views on the way there and Dave couldn't believe his eyes, i was the only one used to the views.

The roads, as usual, were dead, only the odd bus here and there, people stopped using cars and started using bikes and walking again only a few people drove these days.

about an hour away from home i saw a young child run out into the road in front of me i took one look at her fearful face and slammed on the brakes, waking up my teammates. even though she was a child and she wasn't hurt, i was still a little pissed off by her ignorance "Kristen wait!" Amy called, as i got out of the truck, i ignored her and slammed the door behind me. i approached the young girl aged around 10 years of age wearing a red night gown. she staggered back thinking i was going to kill her or something.

"what the hell where you thinking!" i shouted "haven't your school teachers ever taught you about running in front of trucks like that! you could have died!" she just looked at me with a tear in her eye

"please miss, i was being followed." she replied scared stiff. even though it didn't sound right, she looked like she was telling the truth.

"by whom?" Amy butted in slamming the door, i looked at the child in agreement with my comrade.

"her" she said pointing at a figure darkened by the night shadows, i could make out a female face with jet black hair wearing dark clothes and a red shemagh. one thing that stood out though, was her glowing yellow eyes. _that isn't normal, right? _

Amy dug out her sniper rifle from the back of the truck and began leveling the sights on the target, in response i covered the girls eyes the best i could while still being able to watch this mysterious figure, she moved her head forward as if she was trying to make out if Amy had a gun. about five seconds later she moved her head back and began sprinting down the road to Amy's left, Amy began firing numerous shots, i could see them penetrate the woman's flesh but the woman herself just didn't respond no signs that it was hurting her or any sign of blood "dammit!" Amy shouted frowning.

"no, you hit her every time" i said, a look of shock hit Amy's face when i said it. i turned to the child "who was she?" i asked out of pure interest.

"I'm not sure all I heard was 19" I looked at her with an eyebrow raised, could it be her age? Prison number? Or what?

"okay, go home, she wont bother you now" i said in a shifty sounding voice she nodded and ran off into the street nearby, me and Amy got back into 'Rosie' and we continued our journey. we drove past that mysterious figure who was apparently "following" that little girl before, she was ironically looking down at the shiny new holes Amy gave her. as we drove past though she looked me in the eyes and gave me a sorrowful look.

two hours after setting off again we finally arrived at 128 kyle street, my home well... more like my dump but hey. the sun was rising and we could finally see what we were doing again. Dave and Amy jumped out of the truck and awaited my arrival. i climbed out of the truck and acquired my keys, i walked up to my front door and opened it. Amy and Dave followed up close behind me as i walked straight into the living room to get my PC, Dave helped me unplug it and move it into the back of the truck, i got the screen and placed that inside the truck too. after that i got my T.V and the photos of my family and me. then i went upstairs to grab some of my bed linen and my plush teddy that i've had since i was a child. on my way i picked up some things i would need like my hairdryer and my games consoles as well as my prized possesion. my great grandmother's M4 carbine rifle. i realized why my mum gave it to me now, that gun saved her life numerous times. Amy helped get my other possesions like my guns control award and Dave got my clothes and wardrobe. I wrote a note to my friend across the street:

_hey Charlotte,_

_sorry i couldn't tell you sooner, but i got a promotion that requires me to move away from Indiana for a while. I'm keeping my house but I've taken all the things i might need, please don't be mad at me, i tried convincing them i didn't want to go but they wouldn't listen, I'll still have my mobile and email address if you still want to talk to me after this. Tell my other friends too._

_sorry._

_Krissy._

We all got out of the house and i locked the door. Dave and Amy got in truck and i posted the note to my friend. saddened by having to leave the home i love, i got in the truck and Amy drove us to fort Bragg. about half way through the journey i got a text off Charlotte;

"it's okay kristen, are you forgetting i am a psycologist? listen, dont stress over it you can still visit right?"

i smiled at her understanding and text her back ;

"yeah, i guess i can, thanks for understanding" i sent it and waited.

12 hours passed and we were at fort bragg 3pm_ already? _we parked in the garage and unloaded the cargo, and left it for some decorators to take into my new 'room'. an Aston Martin DC2 pulled into the garage, the door opened to reveal Drąsus with a Starbucks ' to go' cup "hey Kristen!" he greeted

"hey"

"Liza had you get your stuff then?" he asked, I nodded at him, "ah, well I better go and get this thing cleaned, she's filthy" he said wiping a bit of muck of the car with his finger and squirming at it.

"okay, I wont hold you back any longer, take care" I said as he got into the car, he smiled and waved at me, he started the engine and drove off. Amy walked up to me with a smile on her face

"right, we gotta report that woman in to Liza so she can survey it then we'll go see Livvy yeah?" she enquired i looked at her kind of wondering why she was smiling

"okay, sounds like a plan" i said following Amy to the command room, we got there and opened the door to find Liza standing over a schematic of the US army forward headquarters in Ethiopia. A man in a dark suit holding a lever arch file noticed we where standing at the doorway.

"sir, Diaz is here" he said in a rather deep voice, Liza momentarily drew her concentration away from the schematic to beckon us over. we walked over to where she was standing.

"what's up? did Dave go walkies?" she asked smiling

"no ma'am we have something to report" Amy responded, Liza looked up, curious and interested.

"what is it?" she asked.

i moved in to accompany Amy in the report she looked at me and nodded slightly. "well, as we were on our way, there a girl stopped us and said that a woman was following her, true enough there was a female figure across the other side of the free way, she had weird eyes. I aimed the gun at her, her response was to run, quite fast too. but anyway, I was shooting at her, and she didn't go down, heck. she didn't even flinch!" she described I looked Liza in the eye in agreement.

"it sounds like she's a member of this new soldier group, illegal of course, and something the ghosts need to check out." Liza informed looking at us both authoritatively "but for now, you've done enough. take a break, I'll fill you in in an hour" she added.

"yes ma'am." Amy and I answered,we walked out of the command room.

"Cohen..." Amy said randomly, I looked at her with sudden realisation, a smile crept onto her face as we began walking to the medical area. before we knew it we were in the medical corridor. Amy looked around frantically for a nurse.

she caught sight of a young woman with blonde hair laying out a medical trolley. "nurse!" Amy called, the young nurse turned around and smiled at Amy softly. she approached us.

"what can I help you with?" she enquired.

"we need to see staff sergeant Olivia Cohen" Amy responded, I looked up at her, she had assumed a soft but authoritative role.

"sure thing, apparently she's out on the shooting range so she can keep her accuracy in check." she said looking down at a tablet with all her patient's locations listed.

"okay thank you" she said gesturing for me to follow her, "she must be ready to come out if they are letting her on the shooting range" she smiled zealously, we walked over onto the safe area of the shooting range. A woman was stood with an MPC94 in her hand shooting at the targets down range with amazing accuracy, i found myself looking down at her heavily bandaged abdomen. surprised at her health, Amy smiled, "Cohen!" she shouted. in retaliation, the woman who seemed to be Olivia abruptly lowered her gun and turned to face Amy.

"hey!" she replied looking pale, but happy. she set the gun down on the ledge and walked over to greet us. "is this Kristen?" Olivia asked gesturing to me, I looked at her shyly.

"yeah that's her, al; right." Amy replied, Cohen looked me in the eye. there was a sense of serenity in her, she smiled at me and looked back to Amy "how are you feeling today?" Amy asked.

"sore, but better than I was" Cohen replied, I saw this as my chance to say hi properly, instead of just shying away

"when are you gonna be back in Alpha?" I asked attempting to spark up conversation. she looked at me with a broad smile on her face

"not long I hope, are you guys doing a simulation practice soon?" she sighed.

"yeah but Liza needs to see us two in about..." Amy looked at her watch "45 minutes" she added

"cool. we got plenty of time for some target practice right?" she asked rhetorically

"yeah okay" Amy answered happily. Cohen looked to me for approval.

"so long as it doesn't hurt" I said, Olivia and Amy giggled

"nah, it doesn't" Olivia answered.

We spent 45 minutes shooting down targets; Amy had the precision, while Cohen had the firing speed, I was somewhere in between

After 45 minutes, Amy and I moved off to meet Liza, Cohen followed us up to the 2nd corridor then broke off to return to her ward. eventually we arrived at the command room i opened the door gingerly. Dave, Joe and Jaden where stood at the MTAC in their full gear. _are we going some place?_ Liza appeared from the coffee room "gear up, we got Intel reporting terror movements in Turkmenistan, I'll fill you in now." she informed opening up a schematic of what looked to be the Russian embassy in Ashgabat. "you'll be inserting into Turkmenistan's Capital city, Ashgabat, apparently there's been some movements from that illegal group I was talking about earlier, they call themselves the Umbra Syndicate, the woman you found got us a match, her codename is all we got" Liza added

"yeah, what is it?" I asked yearning to know more.

"her codename is Umbra 019, we're still trying to find out her real name, but apparently she escaped from the training grounds along with four others, Umbra 023 Umbra 005 Umbra 018 and Umbra 012 about 3 years ago according to our data. so she isn't an Umbra unit any more, also the other four escapees work closely with her in her own group DTU, Death To Umbra. she now apparently works freelance. Kristen, if you can round this lot up bring them here, we will question them, then providing they are all still sane, we might recruit them. All I know is your little friend Umbra 019 hasn't turned up in the terror attacks yet, but she might, as a protagonist though. she's definitely against the Umbra Syndicate. I'll let you know more as more Intel is fed. now get ready you are gonna have to borrow the standard armour again. Annie hasn't quite finished yours yet."

"sure thing." i replied opening the door, Amy followed me out to the changing rooms and i buckled up, this time, I didn't take any headgear and just tied my hair back into a pony tail, allowing some hair to go loose. "what gun should i take, Dave?" i asked through the comm.

"uuhh, a sniper rifle is probably best, but bring an AK548 just incase." he replied

"okay" i picked up an SPR4677 and an AK 548 and strapped up Amy followed up behind me. "were do we go for the transport there?" i aksed Liza

"Amy will show you the way to an AC720 docked up and ready, don't worry it'll land, you wont be making a jump." Liza responded

i sighed in relief at her assurance that we weren't going to jump "thank god for that..." i said following Amy to the dropship. we got to the dropship. Dave, Joe and Jaden where already there waiting for us. Joe looked at my armour, and saw it was still standard, he looked to Dave with a joking smile.

"deja vu Dave?" he said gesturing to me. I looked at them confused Dave also looked confused. "never mind" Joe sighed but he delivered the puff with a smile.

"we all here!" Dave shouted to us

"yeah" we all shouted Dave nodded and ordered the pilot to take off. About 14 hours later, we arrived at Ashgabat. The ramp lowered and we all ran out in an orderly fashion.

Turkmen troops where dug in deep defending what they could against this Umbra syndicate.

Objectives appeared in my HUD

1: Relieve pinned down Turkmen troops, a corresponding way point appeared with the number 1 inside it.

2: clear out Russian embassy. Way point 2 appeared

3:capture at least one Umbra unit. 14 yellow diamonds appeared.

"Burke, Brown you two work together on objective 2 and 3 as a majority of the Umbra units are in the embassy. Amy and Joe you're with me, we'll relieve those Turkmen guys as we need more guys on that objective."

"Rodger that sir" Jaden replied, we moved off and allowed Dave to Brief Amy and Joe.

Within about 5 minutes of non stop running, Jaden and I arrived at the embassy. The slight sounds of gunfire and screaming was enough to make a civilian sick. But we were ghosts, that brings a whole new perspective to things. Jaden and I took cover at either side of the large entrance and counted back from three before entering. swiftly, silently, invisibly. I applied the silencer to my AK548 just incase. To my luck. An Umbra unit was standing at the other side of a nearby entrance. Jaden broke off from me and covered another room, while I waited patiently for this Umbra unit to move. After a while, he made a move, as he ran past me, I grabbed him in a head lock "sshh, call for help and I'll kill you, got it?" I hissed, surprised that he wasn't struggling.

"you're a ghost right? I'm not part of the Syndicate I swear" he said struggling to talk because of my grip. I looked down at his shoulder pad '018' I scanned it into my data bank, the HUD displayed all info about Umbra 018 apart from his name. one paragraph down it said: 'escaped with Umbra 019 and 3 others.'

"I believe you, hold still I ain't gonna hurt you." I said letting my grip loose "I need your help" I added handing him my SPR4677, he nodded at my request.

"sure anything, us lot in our own little group have been wanting to join you guys" he answered readying the gun. I selected the command section in my HUD

"Liza, cross off Umbra 018 I have him in my presence now and he is willing to help" I informed Liza

"Copy that Burke, good job" I turned to Umbra 018

"what's your real name?" I asked.

"John Martin, ma'am."

"okay John you are gonna help me down these Umbra units, then you are gonna call in your other team-mates"

"no can do on the latter I'm the only one here, but Umbra 019 is operating in Iran and she will be for quite a while, before you ask, she has never revealed her real name to me or anyone for that matter."

"okay just follow my lead and eliminate any threats." I answered he nodded and we moved on. 4 Umbra units awaited us in the next room, with hostages, John swiftly shot 2 dead and I put a bullet in the other two before they could even get a shot in. John pulled out a knife and freed the hostages. All of them ran past us and out of the entrance door to safety all scared stiff.

"I've got upstairs covered, I'll be about five minutes" Jaden informed spontaneously

"okay, good luck Jaden"

John and I moved in to the 3rd room of 9. 10 terrorists awaited us and 2 Umbras I was forced to get my back against the wall, there were too many of them to run in and shoot willy nilly, I took out a stun grenade, knowing quite well that it wouldn't work on the Umbras but it would give me enough time. I pulled the pin and chucked the grenade at the terrorists. The terrorists where stunned and the Umbra units where confused. I nodded to John, and we both moved out of cover to kill our stunned adversaries. One by One, they all collapsed to the floor apart from the Umbra units we deliberately left out. They stood before us, not even a bat of the eyelid or a scared look. I lowered my gun, "we can work this out, or we can settle it the hard way." I said assuming an open stance. But I stayed ready with the gun.

"please, just kill us, then we are free" one of them said opening out her arms. Suddenly,blood spurted from their chests and both fell to the floor, revealing two Turkmen soldiers, no doubt the culprits _dammit! Oh well they where only doing their job._ I nodded to them gratefully as if I wasn't trying to help the Umbra units.

"we'll cover the 4th 5th 6th and 7th rooms, you cover the the 8th and 9th rooms got it?" I ordered the Turkmen soldiers

"yes ma'am" they both answered.

John and I moved into the 4th room only hostages where present, John freed them and we moved into the 5th room, the final Umbra unit stood in front of us holding a detonation device.

"you just dare!" John shouted to him. But the Umbra defied his orders and pushed the red button. The explosion echoed through the room and I was hit by light shrapnel, as was John.

"ow" I remarked sarcastically dabbing my finger at one of my bleeding cuts.

"Burke! What the heck was that? are you okay?" Jaden asked worriedly down the comms.

"yeah I'm good some idiot just let off a bomb, I got a couple of cuts, nothing more serious than a splinter." I answered picking out a small piece of shrapnel from my arm.

I moved into the penultimate room of my assignment. About 20 terrorists turned around to look at me, I responded with a grenade. While devastating to some, others where still standing, me and John opened fire, we both delivered a sharp and devastating blow. All of the terrorists where dead, I Could hear gunfire in the 7th room, I reloaded and gingerly opened the door into the 7th room, Jaden stood victoriously over a crowd of 12 dead bodies. He turned frantically to aim his gun at me, I threw my arms up and smiled.

"just me" I said, he turned a confused look to my new comrade. "oh! Jaden, meet John, or Umbra 018." I said getting my AK548 in both hands again. John let out a brief wave and Jaden smiled and nodded.

"secure?" he asked.

"yeah, the Turkmen have it from here" I answered "lets get to the AC720" I added moving out toward the door to the lounge.

"hell yeah, Dave told me he's finished relieving the Turkmen troops and he's on his way back, everyone is fine." He assured following me through the lounge and outside. John stuck with us for the run back, we took out any hostile along the way until finally, we reached the plane. Dave, Amy and Joe awaited us.

"who's your boyfriend Burke?" Amy teased.

" uhh number one: he isn't my boyfriend, and number two: he's a non hostile Umbra unit, Umbra 018" I answered, John smiled at Amy to which she returned the favour. The plane took off and, the boring journey home hit us again. We all fell asleep on the journey back, even John.

I woke up in a luxury room painted in a creamy brown, the bed was so cosy I could've fallen asleep again, but I restrained myself. All my stuff I brought from home was here. My computer my T.V, games consoles wardrobe and the M4 hung faithfully on the wall, this had to be my room. I got up out of bed and let out a large yawn before shuffling to my wardrobe, I looked around my garments to see what I had, I picked out my slouch jeans, and my black shirt. I jumped into the en suite shower to wash down, I brushed my teeth and slipped into my clothes. I walked over to the command room. Drąsus turned around to face me, he smiled.

"ah Kristen good morning, the tailor has finished your armour and she requires you to test drive it for flexibility on our old training course" he hinted.

"okay." I responded "is everyone else awake?" I asked.

"yeah they are in the simulation room with Cohen, they'll be out in an hour"

"okay thanks"

I walked out over to the prep room. The tailor was standing in front of me patiently with my armour. It's stripe was green and it looked allot lighter than the standard armour did the chest piece was a new dragon scale type with plutonite coating for scratch resistance and the leg armour was kevlar reinforced carbon fibre and it was separated into three segments; thigh, knee and shin.

"good job!" I complemented she smiled at me gratefully.

"no problem" she replied happily. She gave me the armour and under armour and allowed me to change. I slipped the under armour on, this time simply just disregarding my scar, knowing that there would probably be worse to come. Both pieces of under armour fitted snugly. Next came my chest piece, it had a sinister sheen to it, I slipped it on and tightened the straps on each segment. Once again, perfect fit. I strapped in to the leg armour. And turned to the tailor, who beckoned me to a small room full of head gear she pulled out a tape measure and measured my head. Watching her moves, I could see she was trying to find a fitting helmet. She picked out a full face one with my green stripe along an air intake duct built in to the helmet I placed it on my head and pulled the visor down. "feel free to look around some missions may require you to wear different headgear, like shemaghs which correspond in colour to who ever you are. Your shemagh is obviously green in colour." she said breaking the silence .

"shall do" I replied, the tailor left the room, and I looked around, there were caps beanies helmets shemaghs, the works. For now I stuck with my full face helmet, I sort of became attached to it after the simulation

I walked outside following the arrows pointing to the obstacle course, eventually I arrived at a door but because the helmet limited visibility I head butted it, I shook the clumsy incident off and opened the door I found myself surrounded in an NSA like training course. Only with guys posing as guards to test durability

"start wherever you want I just want to evaluate its flexibility the test should only take about two minutes." the tailor said from the box up in the top of the room. I nodded at her and began moving around the course, one guard was directly in front of me turned to away from me. I looked to my right and saw a pole that could be easily climbed up, so I did just that, I was surprised at the grip of the gloves as I climbed. When I got to the top of the frame, I located that guard. I jumped down in front of him, he looked at me in shock, and began firing dud bullets at me, I grabbed him by the back of the neck and forced his head into my uplifted knee. I turned around and kept moving. Another guard was at the end of the hallway to my right. Patiently, I waited for him to return to his previous point. When he did, I high kicked him in the face. I whimpered in agony as he fell to his knees. Amused, I patted him on the head "there, there should I kiss it better" I said sarcastically, he just fell straight down to the floor unconscious.

I moved down the hallway that guard just came from and found myself stuck, but a pipe travelled through the room and through a man sized hole, I jumped up and grabbed hold of it and be began traversing through into the next room. I was met by electrowire, but the distance was short enough to slide though unharmed. I stepped back as far as I could, ran up to a point a dropped into a slide under the electrowire. I was way clear of it by the time I had stopped sliding. But I was met by a hallway with a guard walking my way. I looked up and found a metal bar firmly dug into the wall. I leapt up and sat patiently on the bar. The guard was just about underneath me when I swung by my legs, and punched him in his face. At the end of the swing I let my legs lose grip and I landed on my feet.

"okay, the armour is working great, you know for a newbie, you don't half fight like an experienced ghost. The door outta here is just to your left open it and you will find yourself at the command centre again."

"okay, thanks and as for the fighting style, it's a family trait."

I opened the door to my left only to be met by an elite ghost in a full face helmet ready to attack, he grabbed me by the throat and flung me into the opposite wall of the corridor, slightly dazed, I picked myself up just in time to dodge his next move, he swung at me but I executed a perfect dodge but out of nowhere another elite pulled off my helmet and kneed me in the face,the edge of his knee pad hit my nose head on which caused a rather deep and painful cut on the bridge of my nose, I could feel myself losing momentum I felt agonising pain shoot through my my head, but as I recovered, I saw an opportunity. I grabbed the first ghost by his pants, took a deep breath and lifted him off the ground, it took all my effort to turn him upside down and slam him onto the ground, luckily, with me knowing it was a training exercise, I made sure he landed on his back with a hard grunt in pain. The next one got sneaky, he grabbed my arms and put them behind my back, he kicked me in my lower spine so hard It slammed me into the opposite side of the corridor as soon as he let go of my arms, cutting my lip, I turned around to see him running at me ready to head butt me in the stomach but I thought of my school days and stuck out my leg level with his groin. He was running too fast to stop and he got my foot right in his knackers. Both where on the floor writhing in pain.

Annie began giggling down the radio as I painfully straightened up and grabbed my earpiece from my helmet "always be ready for the element of surprise kid" the two attackers eventually got up and assumed a less hostile stance, I knew they weren't going to fight me, they took off their full face helmets. "meet Zak, the guy on your left" he smiled and waved insecurely he must have thought I would just sneer, I returned the favour, he seemed a little more relaxed when I did. "and meet A.C.I.D the guy on your right" I found myself looking into his glowing red eyes, they seemed to dim down and change to a more brown colour as he calmed down, he grinned openly at me.

"A.C.I.D?" I asked confused down the radio.

"My name stands for Advanced Combat Infantry Demonstrator" he murmured, his voice was slightly numb sounding like he'd seen the horrors of every war since 2030.

He had stylishly short messy black hair with an unusual tint of red at the top and two scars down his cheek that looked almost identical in size and distance away from his nose. He was clean shaven, but he was a man people must have feared facing in combat, a hand to hand expert.

Zak looked at A.C.I.D with a look of confidence in his eye.

"but do you have a real name?" I asked him I was dying to know.

"i did, a very long time ago, but my old name is inadequate now. I'm known as Acid or Ace. But not my old name" he answered, his voice was still numb but he was getting a little more confident talking to me.

"what about you Zak? Is that your real name?" I asked to Zak, he looked at me and grinned.

"yeah, I'm the real deal." he answered, his voice had a touch of pain in it but what could I expect his back ain't gonna tickle after his fall. He had mysterious grey eyes and chopped hair, but because of the helmet and the naturally fragile styling, it was a little messed up.

Both soldiers were well proportioned and they were both quick witted hand to hand experts, two men I would hate to meet like that again.

"we better get going, we have close quarter simulations after alpha team." Zak sighed looking fed up of simulation after simulation. "well, it was nice meeting you. we will probably cross paths again in the near future" he added grinning, Acid looked in approval to Zak.

"yeah, you too." I said grinning briefly waving to them as they walked up the corridor to the Simulation room.

I picked up my helmet and strolled painfully through the door and into the command room my back was killing me and I could feel that my nose was about to bleed after that run in.

Liza turned to face me and noticed my battle scars (well, shrapnel wounds) from the mission in Turkmenistan, the small, bleeding graze on my right cheek, the bleeding cut on the bridge of my nose and my cut lip in my run in with Acid and Zak.

_Get ready for the "oh you poor thing" speech Krissy._ Liza looked at me sympathetically, I looked up at her and forced a painful smile on to my beaten face.

"failed the hand to had exam Burke?" she asked assessing my cuts and graze.

"that was another exam?" I asked. Liza giggled.

"no it wasn't, but it was meant to teach you, don't think you are out of the water unless you are back home."

"oh, right, lesson learned I guess."

"what about these?" she asked poking at my shrapnel wounds and smiling jokingly. I pushed her hand away at the pain.

"shrapnel wounds, from Turkmenistan." I responded, smiling. Liza looked at me in that motherly way she used to when I came home from school beaten up by the school bully. I could see that she didn't want the whole foster care thing to be "just an act" she actually felt like my mum well, I had a better relationship with her than my real mum.

"you need to take it easy kiddo I don't want you killed in your first year." she said concerned, and amused.

"I will." I smiled.

Ironically, a video feed of what looked to be my mum appeared on MTAC. She looked to be in the middle of a battle, she had her fair share of shrapnel wounds too.

"Liza, I'm in position, how long are those ghosts gonna be?" she asked, that was definitely her, she was wearing a white shemagh and her hair was still the same old style as it was when I saw her last.

"ETA in 2 minutes Sophie" Liza answered, yeah it was Sophie alright. she squinted her eyes down the MTAC, she was squinting down it at me, her eyes widened in shock.

"Kristen?" she asked out of shock and confusement

"Hi." I answered abruptly, for some reason, I was sort of angry no one had told her about my new career

"are you angry at me?" she asked sorrowfully, she thought I was angry at her?

"no, no, please don't think I am. what's going on out there?" I was worried, really worried.

"full scale disaster, Turkmenistan has turned into the hot spot of a war on an international scale, listen, I'm sorry but I have to go, this mission is gonna tear me up and id hate for you to see it." she said shooting down a couple of soldiers

"okay, dead or alive, I'll see you later." I responded, Liza closed the link and looked at me sympathetically, I stared down at my boots, I felt a tear trickle down my cheek as Liza moved to comfort me, she took me in her arms and rested her head on mine. I sniffled, but I was grateful for the comfort.

"she'll be okay, she always is." Liza said in a comforting voice, I closed my eyes, I just wanted to shut off from the world around me, and just get into mom's mind and tell her to get outta there. The worst thing I wanted to happen, is to not see her for 6 years and have her die on me when I see her again, especially when that was the time where I needed her guidance most.

"what if she isn't? what if she's dead?" I whimpered. Liza placed her hand gently on my head.

"then all I can do is hope her death was quick." she said softly, "if she comes back injured, I will do everything in my power to make sure she keeps breathing." she said taking me from her embrace and looking me in the eye. I tried forcing a smile onto my face, but after what I saw it was hard. "now you go rest up in your room you have a mission tomorrow." she told me authoritatively and motherly

"yeah, okay. Thanks I needed that." I replied half smiling. She smiled back and I walked back to my room. I got there and realised I left my clothes in the armoury I ran back over to get them just before Amy and crew got out, the worst thing I wanted to do was talk to alpha team today. I ran back to my bedroom, got changed and threw myself on the bed. Before I knew it I was asleep, having nightmares about mom.

_She was running, so far and so fast from these Turkmen ultra-nationalists but when she looked back, she saw one of her team-mates had fallen behind, as she ran back to help her team-mate, the ultra-nationalists opened fire on her, as she helped her team-mate up, bullets whizzed past her and some hit,she fell to the floor and her team-mate tried to help her. But she refused the help. She pulled out her pistol and pushed it up against her head, shaking, and crying. She pulled the trigger_

I bolted awake at a large bang, and, what sounded to be Amy crying out in pain and cursing out loud.

Intrigued, I jumped out of bed and opened the door slightly Amy was hopping and her calf was bleeding, not heavily, but enough for me to realise that she had somehow shot herself there.

"you okay, Amy?" I inquired poking my head out of the door. She looked up at me and gave a painfully mischievous smile.

"morning! Your mum is almost done on her mission, one more objective and she's coming home, Liza said I had to tell you." she smiled letting her foot down on the floor again.

I half smiled back "what happened to your leg?" I yawned

"they always said fort Bragg was impenetrable, I wanted to test that theory"she giggled, trying to hide her humiliation. "anyway liza wants us on an AC720 over to Turkmenistan in an hour so get geared up and stuff, we'll fill you in on the way there." she informed

"okay, what weapon should I take?" I asked out of interest

" I don't know uuhh take anything you feel comfortable taking" she answered smiling, as I stepped out of the door, she noticed something on my face and began wondering what had happened. "whoa what happened to your nose?" she asked in utter shock, I looked at her, wondering what the heck she was on about. "it's all cut, that's no shrapnel wound, its rather... bruisy." she added tilting her head and looking at it at different angles.

"Hand to hand combat. long story." I answered, she stopped tilting her head and cringed knowingly. I looked behind me, wondering where my armour had gone, but there was a note on my computer desk with the words "_Krissy it's important" _written on it. I took it with me to read on the way over to the mission zone. I ran over to the kit room with Amy and found my armour loyally waiting for me on a bench, I slipped into my gear and took my shemagh and dissembled my full face helmet to get the earpiece off. I walked over to the wall and began choosing my weapons.

"there is another member on the team today" Dave started, walking through the door, I looked at him, and frowned uncertainly, was this new person replacing me?

"he'll be replacing mike, he's hurt his shoulder badly in a car accident and wont be joining us for sometime." he added. A young looking man entered the room,he was Israeli looking his skin was so smooth, his gentle glistening eyes met mine "Kristen, meet Charlie, Charlie, meet Kristen" Dave sighed uncomfortably, Charlie waved at me and I waved back, and turned to the weapon shelf I stared down the rocket launcher, somehow,Charlie knew I was,

"I'll take the rocket launcher, dont worry" he grumbled nervously, expecting me to lecture him on my specialism, I just turned to him and nodded. That aside, I took an M81, and a G709, I would need the medium range fire power, I took the standard Gamma 4 pistol and some dome charges just in case. I ran over to the AC720 to and got on, we were met by a UH-90 Firebird in the bowels of the fuel powered dragon we call a plane.

Amy and crew joined on to the plane shortly after I did. I noticed Jaden, Charlie, Dave, Joe and Amy where on the team._ Not much variety here only one guy changed and that's because of a bad shoulder oh well, I guess I could get used to it._ Once we where all in, Amy gave the signal to get this thing off the ground the pilot acknowledged and increased throttle, when we where up in the air I pulled out the note and opened it up, the note said:

_listen, I wasn't gonna say this in front of all the staff, but you mom has been working for the ghosts for as long as I can remember, she is just based in another unit for your safety, she asks about you every time she sees me or has contact with me, she really regrets leaving you for her job, but she put her trust in __not just me, but you too, she used to watch over you from a distance nearly all the time when you were a child, but she didn't dare speak to you or come close to you, she has been on the wanted list of 1000s of terrorists before and she would hate for you to be endangered by her actions, listen it is hard to believe, but me and your mom, have been there for you since the start, when you told me that day you were in hospital, that you saw her and I denied it, she was there, and she was desperately holding back tears seeing you like that, thankfully she has almost completed her mission and I have organised for you two to finally meet properly after six years, and for the record, there is more to Charlie than meets the eye, If he acts nervous around you, it's because of who he is._

_Right, to explain Amy;_

_she is darker on missions than simulations so Dave takes her out of your way, but we cant keep doing that you two are great friends, so I am going to explain why she is so dark, she was on a mission with her family at her side, she was only 19, and they came under fire by tanks and terrorists, Amy got hit twice by machine gun rounds, Amy's parents got her to cover, but at the cost of Tom, her older brother, who was providing cover fire for the family to move Amy away from harm, Tom was still alive but struggling to keep it that way, the terrorists moved up on Tom's position and knifed him to death, his screams of pain traumatised Amy, she felt helpless as her parents were holding her back, Amy's family moved out until a terrifying turn of events, a friendly chopper descended on Amy's family, and began engaging enemy forces who were following them home, a rocket destroyed the chopper completely, and Amy was standing right underneath it, her mom and dad both leapt at her and shoved her out of the way, the Blow was devastating, to both Amy's family who had then died, but to Amy too, who was stuck underneath the rubble fighting for her life. I found her stuck underneath the chopper that day, I was 34 and a ghost captain, I called a SAR team in to get her out, and after that, I took her under my wing as a ghost. Even though she doesn't show it, she has serious difficulty controlling her emotions, and when on a mission, she promises to "cap every last motherfucker standing." so just be careful what you say, around her, Dave knows about this note but I didn't go into detail, you are allowed on missions with Amy now. As for the chopper, you'll have to meet your new pilot soon._

_Liza_

I looked up from the note, and I realised how uncomfortable Amy looked, as well as the comforting look Dave was giving her, Charlie was very at ease with the whole flight business, we was just sitting there staring blankly at nothingness, but he seemed happy, and somewhat occupied.

14 hours later, we arrived on the mission zone.

"give us a hand with this chopper!" an engineer bellowed chucking us some ropes and pulleys. the whole team immediately sprung into action, each of us grabbing a rope and two engineers loosening off the ties.

"One! Two! Three!" he yelled, on three we pulled at the ropes and the chopper moved back. He counted again, and we pulled. On the third, the chopper was out, with and enormous bang, A woman wearing a jump suit and carrying a flight helmet appeared from the cockpit of the plane, she was scarred on her face from the top of her cheek to the bottom of her jaw.

"hey watch the paintwork!" she shouted worriedly, Amy looked up in recognition of that voice, when she saw who it was she smiled." wassup Amy?" the pilot smiled.

"Ginger, you're back!" Amy answered in disbelief "i thought weren't able to fly?" she said somewhat baffled.

"I wasn't, until I showed miraculous recovery, well, to tell the truth, the new bionics helped me along" she answered, pulling down her left sleeve, her arm straight down to her elbow, was fully mechanical,no sign of her old arm was in sight, whatever happened must have been painful.

"geez it's been ten years since you were my pilot, but its great to see you back on form." Amy smiled happily.

"yeah my old chariot is too." she responded, slapping the side door and smiling gratefully. I examined the chopper, it had decals of a lion pulling a flaming chariot, with the words _GHOSTS: CHARIOT OF FIRE _printed onto it, this was an exclusive Ghost chopper, I looked up at its weapon selection, I counted six, 4, automatic targeting miniguns and 2 missile launchers. My eyes widened, it was so easy to pull out of the AC720 but it had such heavy weaponry. "she's a beast ain't she?" Ginger asked looking at me. I turned to her.

"yeah, for a chopper it's quite big" I responded feeling belittled by its sheer size.

"the biggest, and fastest." she smiled proudly.

"what happened to your arm?" I quizzed.

She let her voice down into a whisper "that note you got, I was the co-pilot of said chopper wreck, and this-" she hissed gesturing to the firebird Chopper "_is_ said chopper wreck, coming together now?" she added, she smiled and started getting into the cockpit.

"yeah, thanks" I replied grinning.

She flared up the engines. Dave grouped the team up around the chopper.

"I've got a team to pick up and drop off, your mission zone is a 5 minute walk west of here, I'll pick you up when you are done." she shouted over the spinning blades

"Alright. good luck Ginger, and try not to crash the bird" Dave answered preparing himself. Ginger put on her helmet and tapped the radio into control, she gently increased throttle, and began flying forward.

I prepared my M81, put it on safe, strapped it onto my shoulder and began to prep the G709 when Dave called us into a huddle. "listen, these Georgian, Russian ultranationalists are plotting to destroy the Ashgabat monument of peace and independence, this cant be allowed, Turkmenistan's people adore this monument and has been a morale booster for both civilians and soldiers of Turkmenistan for years. So that is objective one; secure the monument of peace and independence.

There are snipers mowing down Turkmen allies and even refugees in the area, so that is objective two; take down all snipers in the area. They will be hiding in trees and buildings so keep an eye out, estimated numbers are 5-10 snipers.

An allied medical unit is under heavy fire and there are tanks rolling in from all different directions ready to destroy the medical convoy, objective three is to relieve the medical convoy so they can get to injured civilians and soldiers.

Ginger should hopefully be ready to pick us up by then so objective four is to get to the Chopper, with any luck, safely.

Burke, Diaz and Foster, you're with me. Jaden, Charlie you two take out the tanks closing in on the medical convoy. We'll take out the ultranationalists plotting to blow up the monument and if you are ready, you can back us up in the counter sniping. If not we'll go on without you and you can meet us up at the LZ. Understood?" Dave informed authoritatively. They nodded and ran off into the distance preparing their weapons along the way. Dave beckoned us to follow him, we did finding ourselves heading straight for the towering monument. About 30 seconds later, I noticed an enemy patrol north west of me,

"sir, enemy patrol 10 o'clock!" I informed. Dave looked over to were I had informed the group was.

"good job Burke, spread out get to cover!" he ordered, immediately Me, Amy and Joe dispersed and took cover behind anything good enough, I was positioned behind a truck, Amy took up position inside a building, as she did, she chucked an enemy sniper out of the window

"sniper one, dead" she informed down the radio to us.

Joe, took cover behind a downed chopper, while Dave hijacked the working Minigun.

"Burke, you distract them." Dave ordered, I looked at him in fear and shock.

"what? How am I gonna do that?" I yelled, just low enough so the patrol couldn't hear me.

"there's a sniper there, conscious, shoot him, either way it'll make a loud enough noise." he shrugged.

"and If I die?" I frowned

"then I'm sorry"

I rolled my eyes and shot the sniper, to no surprise, the patrol unit looked up at me, they shouted something in Russian and began aiming their guns, I froze not knowing weather to fight or fly, but before they could fire or I could move. sniper, Minigun and rifle shots hit the group's heads and necks. Dave and crew had killed all of them.

Dave gave a regroup order, and we all followed him, when we got to the foot of the monument of peace, we all spread out again, and hid in the grass, nearby, Amy sought out the bomb squad and lined her sights up, while Dave and I cut off the escape routes, Joe was on standby for medical, and bomb disarming

Dave counted back from 3, and gave the order, Amy shot a member in the head, the others looked around them worriedly, Dave and I sprung into action and began shooting, they went down like cans on a wall.

"is the bomb active?" Dave asked me, I ran up to the bomb, and found that the bomb squad had only just got the bomb out let alone set it.

"no, we're clear." I answered searching the area for more bombs, I ran around the monument checking the foot for explosive traces or any enemies, suddenly I was forced forward by a large impact to my lower spine, and a slight stinging sensation. I turned around and caught on that a sniper had just tried to kill me.

I raised my scope, and aimed at the sniper, I fired and hoped it hit, which it did.

Amy ran over to me to see what happened.

"two." is all I really had to say. She nodded in realization and we established that after two more tangos were down, the monument was secure. Joe caught sight of my wound.

"hey, you okay? You're bleeding" he asked concerned about my health.

"I'm fine, the armour got most of it" I shrugged happily

Once again we followed Dave around the buildings of the city, heading for yellow markers, I counted 5, they must have been the snipers.

"Jaden, Sitrep" Dave requested sown the radio abruptly.

"all good over here, we are almost done, should we meet you at the chopper or what?" Jaden responded.

"meet us at the chopper, I've set the LZ in your HUD." Dave answered.

He looked at us and closed the comm link.

"split up, we can kill more snipers that way then meet at the LZ, happy hunting" he said, running off, I reloaded, while I had the chance, gave Amy and Joe a farewell nod, and set off. I ran through the city engaging any ultranationalists along the way, when 2 minutes of running later the snipers I was heading towards 'died' in fact all of the snipers did.

"did our cross comm. Just die?" Amy asked baffled down the radio,

"no they're genuinely dead. That is just bonkers" Dave responded. "everyone form up on the chopper Ginger will no doubt be waiting."

"acknowledged" I reported, and closed the link. I turned tail and began running towards the LZ, about 50 seconds later I realized I was being followed by an enemy type two APC, I stopped, turned around, ran up and jumped onto it. I opened the hatch and chucked a grenade in. 30 seconds after I jumped off, the APC imploded, and I moved on. 5 minutes later, I got to the LZ, the rest of the team was already there, they were looking at me In a petty way. "sorry i'm late guys, I encountered trouble on the way." I puffed. They all shrugged and ginger moved off.

Liza appeared in our HUDs she looked concerned.

"Ghost Alpha, we need you on a mission to hell's gate, the Delta forces are dug in deep against enemy tanks, you'll have a resupply chopper arrive for you there, but once you touch down, and keep your heads low, Cohen will be assisting on this mission, she has made an outstanding recovery, so we are sending her back onto the field. She'll be waiting for you next to the Whiskey Delta chopper. Understood?" she ordered confidently

"yeah understood, could you put her on? She might give us a better understanding of the situation down there, seeing as she's there." Dave requested politely. Liza acquiesced and put Cohen on the comm. She looked healthy and strong with an MPC 94 in hand and purple striped armour. She looked down the comm. Camera, lowered her gun and smiled.

"wassup ghosts?" Cohen started, getting to cover behind what looked to be a giant mechanical leg and reloading

"hey Cohen, what's the situation down there?" Dave asked Cohen peeked out from cover to check the surrounding area.

"sorry to be an idiot, but I'm not quite sure myself, but we got reports of heavy tanks heading our way, hence why your Mechs are all prepped and ready, at the moment we are just having ultranationalist infantry being chucked at us, and they dont seem to be proving very effective against our troops, but I can see the outline of tanks in the distance down a sniper scope, but all in all, we got an hour to be ready, we have DTU teams on standby by and we have Finland's full support here, they have brought in their Cobra squadron into the war, they are the most advanced planes and pilots in the world, they'll be arriving in about 20 minutes time, they said they have to refuel first before setting off. We are getting help from Russian, Lithuanian and Latvian troops too, as well as existing support from Turkmen allies. So expect a full scale battle here, just beware of hell's gate." Cohen informed. She peeked around the corner again, this time she looked to be zooming in on her HUD.

"those tanks are visible now, tell Ginger to hurry up! We dont have much time." Cohen added sounding worried, Dave obeyed.

"Ginger speed up! Death wont wait! you and I both know that!" Dave ordered, Ginger gave the three fingers and increased throttle we were at the battle-zone in 15 minutes.

We disembarked and regrouped on a supply APC and resupplied, not that we needed it.

"Jaden, Foster and Charlie! Take the Mechs! Burke, Diaz and Cohen! On me!" Dave shouted, it didn't take the ultranationalists long to notice that we were here and they began firing on us, Joe, Charlie and Jaden were mounted in the Mechs and ready for the tanks. We started running towards cover, but I made a brash decision, I stopped and returned fire, each of my shots deadly accurate, all of the attackers I engaged died, Dave, Amy and Olivia were safe in cover, when Dave realised the danger I was facing and how well I took it. I lowered my gun and ran to their position.

"sorry I'm late" I puffed, Cohen looked at me in utter shock.

"hey, fine by me!" she responded shrugging at me.

The Mechs suddenly began to move, forcing me to jump out of my skin Amy giggled, I caught my breath and pulled myself together.

"sir my HUD indicates the tanks are about 30 minutes away." Jaden informed down the radio "there are 7 heavy tanks and 12 light armoured tanks, I cant count the infantry but our HUDs are going absolutely wild over here!" he added sounding concerned. Dave frowned and gestured for us to take a look, we obeyed and peeked out of cover, as Jaden had informed the HUDs started going crazy giving us Intel markers of enemies I could barely see. I returned to cover and flicked the HUD a bit, it eventually woke up from it's hissy fit and began giving us more adequate Intel markers like one coming around the corner, I abruptly aimed my gun at the corresponding corner, an enemy sprinted around the corner, stopped and shot me in the leg, I was glad it was only a flesh wound, I returned fire, it was mostly blind fire, but I still hit him, Jaden's mech immediately turned around and unleashed a burst from his integrated Gatling gun, the shots blew him clean in half, I blocked the sight, it was too horrifying to watch. "i got ya covered." he assured me sympathetically, knowing full well that, that was not a sight I wanted to see, but one I had to get used to. Cohen turned to me concerned about my wound.

"you okay?" she asked.

I straightened up. "yeah just a flesh wound, bit stingy" I replied smiling at her.

"incoming cobras!" Charlie informed, two Intel markers appeared both of them blue in colour. I looked behind cover to see what the big fuss was about. They both fired 2 missiles at a large group of advancing enemies the advancing force was severely crippled, but one missile went haywire and started towards a group of DTU members. In response Jaden grabbed the missile with his mechanical arm and threw it the opposite way towards the survivors, another crippling blow. Dave gave us the order to attack any stragglers, we acknowledged and darted out of cover guns blazing, Cohen had the right, Amy had the left Dave and I had the middle. One after the other, ultranationalist infantry collapsed. Until finally, a moment of tranquil, we strolled back to cover and reloaded.

Jaden, Joe and Charlie split up knowing that they could destroy more tanks that way. The ground shaking with every step of those Mechs. Eventually Dave ordered us to do the same so we split up, Cohen manned a machine gun Amy found a sniper position and I used a pile of debris. Dave stayed by the APC.

The cobra squadron turned around ready for the second bomb run, while I had the chance, I scanned the planes with the HUD, to get information, some help that was, it informed me that the vehicle did not exist, I tried changing the filters, but that didn't work either, the cobra squadron, didn't exist?

"hey do you mind? that is fucking up my radar!" one pilot told me. The voice was female and the Finnish accent was faint.

"sorry, I was curious as to the planes you were flying" I said innocently.

"November mike, we're flying prototype SU-154s, there are only 4 left in the world, those cowards got lucky with 3 of these babies and blew them up, now, were pissed!" she added.

"sorry but... November mike?" I asked.

"it's pilot slang for never mind, sometimes it gets all crackly down the radio and everyone asks questions as to what the fuck we just said, so we use November mike now." she answered. Her voice was certainly less agitated than before.

"thanks, I guess I better let you get on with your work" I sighed.

"yeah, just remember, sometimes curiosity kills, I'd hate for you to be on the KIA list." she replied, closing the link.

Because of my short conversation I had lost track of the battle, I poked my head out to take a look at the situation, the tanks had sped up, allot. My HUD indicated they were only 5 minutes away, and they ware already firing on our lines. My sight turned to a DTU unit being attacked close range, I aimed my gun at his attacker and fired, killing the enemy instantly. Not even looking at what was around me I ran out to help the DTU unit back into cover, as I did, I realised the importance of checking my surroundings. A tank's turret turned to face me, I looked up in shock. I was a rabbit in the headlights, screwed. I frantically fumbled with the DTU unit's injured body, when I retained a hold I hauled him over my shoulder and began running toward cover, the tank fired a high explosive shell nearby, some shrapnel hit me, my god did it hurt, but I kept moving. I got to cover and set the DTU member down. He looked like he had been to hell and back, mind you this was hell's gate, but that was beside the point. Shaking, I opened one of my utility pouches and handed him a canteen of water. He took it from my hand gratefully and numbly he began drinking the water. I reached into another pouch and pulled out a first aid kit.

"hey, did you have a gun?" I asked, guns, in this battle were something you didn't want to lose, you'd be screwed if you did. He worriedly began searching himself for the strap of his gun, a look of fear entered his face. I looked out and saw the gun laying on the floor where I had just come from. "dont worry, stay here and try and medicate yourself I'll be back in a minute." I assured, setting my G709 down.

valiantly I exited cover and ran into the field to grab his gun, with only a pistol in my hand. I was crazy, it was just a gun, but a gun that couldn't get into the wrong hands. it was an antitank rifle. The tank began firing high explosive rounds at me again as I ran back, but none gave me any serious wounds, I dived back into cover. When I realized, I wasn't hearing any gunshots, apart from the enemies, I could hear cheering. I looked out of cover, the enemy wasn't retreating, so what was the celebration about. I looked at the nearest allies, and realised they were all cheering at me _I got a gun, so what?_ Cohen's face appeared in my HUD

" holy shit Burke! medal of honour action or what?" she exclaimed. I was baffled.

"huh? All I did was save a guy, nothing more than what the rest of you soldiers do, right?" I responded. Cohen's eyes widened.

"yeah we save allot of people Burke but not like that, that was amazing! Surely Liza saw what you did, you saved that man from death while putting your own life at risk, that's what makes it meet the criteria!" she argued "that was pure bravery!" she added still trying to get over what she saw.

"no it was sheer stupidity, I didn't even think!" I argued back.

"that's probably because the REAL you is showing through, a brave and selfless, who couldn't give a shit whether a tank was shooting at her, she'd still bring a guy back home!" she said holding her ground.

Cohen's face was replaced by Liza's, she was smiling. _Now for another one of foster mummy's lectures yaaayy! Not_

"yes I did see that thank you, Cohen. Jeez the whole command room saw that, the cheering has only just stopped! The president and the general have been told, and I relayed the video from your headcam to them they both think that that was a medal of honour action, enough said. the papers are going to be signed now, and you'll get the award as soon as you come back, which, unfortunately, it does not look like it is soon. Trouble has arose in Tejen, we have found out, that the Georgians have got help from Iran, meaning that we could have a full scale war on our hands if we're not careful, or worse. Anyway, keep it up! Those tanks just need to go and hopefully the Delta forces,Jaegers and Lithuanian force will have it covered. DTU will be following you and helping you out, the only people you dont have with you is umbra 018, he's being evaluated by us at the moment and umbra 019 is all over the place, we cant keep track of her, at the moment she is in Iran, apparently, in a nuclear facility, she must be planning something and something big at that." Liza said, I couldn't argue back or I would be arguing with the President and General Jameson.

"roger that, I'll carry on now." I smiled. I pulled myself together and focused on the DTU unit, he was fumbling with the bandages he had done a good job with some but he was having trouble with his stomach wounds. "here, let me help." I said taking the bandage from his shaking hands, he looked up and smiled gratefully, I wrapped it around him 11 times and tied it off. He tried getting up, but failed. I got up and held out my arm. He grabbed it and I pulled him up, I grabbed his sniper rifle and gave it to him.

"thank you, I owe you my life." he puffed.

"no, you owe me nothing." I said kindly. Everyone clapped me and some cheered I looked down at the ground for a while, then looked up and frowned. "okay shows over, those tanks ain't gonna blow themselves up!" I adjured pointing at the tanks. They immediately shut up, agreed, and got to work I looked back to the DTU unit. "number?" I asked randomly, he knew what I meant

"Umbra 005" he responded looking me in the eye

"any news on 019?" I quizzed

"she's in Iran, spying on a nuclear facility apparently they are making nukes to end Turkmenistan altogether, she wants to sabotage the facility and run it straight outta business"

"sounds like a plan, anyway, gotta get back to work" I said ending the conversation, he nodded in agreement.

I ran over to the APC and grabbed a rocket launcher for the light tanks, they were well in view and mowing down allot of Delta forces members as well as Lithuanian Army soldiers. If they kept that up, they would win the battle, and most likely kill us all. I aimed at the closest one, got a lock, but somehow the crew knew I had that lock, they turned their turret to face me but I got there first I fired a rocket at it's side, blowing a hole in its body work. A heavy tank, the same one that tried to kill me earlier turned to face me and tried to kill me again. My HUD indicated it was out of shells and bullets but that didn't stop it trying to run me over I quickly reloaded the rocket launcher and fired, rather panicked at it's caterpillar tracks crippling it and stopping it moving any further, an engineer opened the hatch and jumped down to try and fix the caterpillar track I dropped the rocket launcher and drew my pistol. I shot him in the back killing him slowly. The crew eventually unloaded the useless vehicle, leaving them all vulnerable, Jaden responded with Gatling rounds. All of them died pretty much instantly and gruesomely.

"thanks Jaden!" I called giving him the thumbs up.

"no problem, that's teamwork for ya!" he replied, I watched as he pulled out a large railgun from the bodywork of the Mech and began firing shots at the heavy tanks, Joe and Charlie joined along shortly after, before too long the 7 heavy tanks were inoperable because of the sheer power of these railguns the 11 light tanks left were attacked by DTU units about 30 seconds later. I picked up my rocket launcher re-equipped more ammo and joined in, I looked to my right to find a tank aiming up at the sniper tower Amy was based in, it fired at the foot of the tower causing it to collapse. My heart was raging I aimed the rocket launcher at it's body and fired, destroying it and the crew.

"fuckers!" I muttered. I quickly slung the rocket launcher over my shoulder, acquired the G709 and ran to the tower ruin. Some rubble began to move and Amy appeared, she stood up and brushed some dust off her armour "you okay Amy?" I enquired, she smiled and nodded, it's almost like it never happened, I replaced my equipped weapon from my G709 to my rocket launcher and reloaded it. Another tank was inbound, and we were exposed. I couldn't hit it's front it would take more than one shot, which would slow me down. That's when I saw a crate of explosive materials in its path. blow that up then it's front end would blow open easily. "Amy, get outta here, this might not end well" I requested, she acknowledged and ran to cover nearby. I began aiming the rocket launcher at the explosive crate and counted down to calm my mind _5, 4, 3, 2, 1 _I fired as the tank was about to hit the crates out of the way. The rocket set off the explosion, it was devastating, but it worked. I smiled and counted the tanks still remaining active, _3; holy crap these guys work fast_ the last 3 had already been engaged. And before long they where gone, the infantry began retreating, cowards! All of the allied soldiers still alive started cheering, the thrill of a victory so close between sides. I began to grow tired as I regrouped with Dave to mount up In the chopper. Jaden, Joe and Charlie dismounted from their Mechs and joined us. As I got in the whole team started digging me and smiling at me. I still didn't get it, so what I saved some guys ass, what made me so special? I curled up in my spot and fell asleep on the way over to Tejen. I didn't dream for some reason, I just woke up when Amy shook me awake.

"hey, you still alive in there?" she asked jokingly. I yawned, got up and dismounted off the chopper.

"have fun guys!" Ginger called out, I looked back and smiled appreciatively to her. She increased upward thrust and flew off into the distance.

I resupplied at the M.U.L.E 10 and regrouped on Dave.

"this is a mission that requires us to stick together, the umbra syndicate has sent out some elites and they are taking children from their parents by force. We dont have the weapons to kill them so we will have to avoid them at all costs. What we are here for, is to stop an arms dealer delivering ammo to the ultranationalists here it could prove devastating if that ammo is put into the wrong hands! So we have to stage an ambush on the ammo convoy at the Tejen inlet, we are about 2 minutes away from our suggested position, it is heavily guarded, but no elite umbra units are present on the transit, that we know of. Lets go!" he yelled out, he ran ahead and we followed we were heading toward a small looking abandoned warehouse, in the middle of nowhere how we would go unseen was a mystery, but Dave had ways, from what I was told anyway. I noticed that there were many abandoned cars and trucks on the road the convoy was due to head down. And rather irrelevantly, Cohen's hairstyle, through her cap, it was long and straight mostly but it had some small braids dotted around with beads at the end, it was well layered where it wasn't braided, overall, it was a beautiful style, I envied it, but I shook the image out of my head and appreciated my own hair, long, brown tied into a scruffy low ponytail and tucked underneath the shemagh.

I caught up to her. "hey!" I started. She looked at me and smiled.

"howdy! Hows life?" she asked.

"it's okay, I like your hair. is there a hairdresser in fort Bragg?"i asked, she took a braid in her hand and played with it, she smiled.

"thanks, Annie the tailor did it a while back she's a great hairdresser she loved the hairstyle a woman had on a statue in the gardens, I should really brush off the dust and see who it is,but anyway she wanted to try it on someone, so she tried it on me. So... Do you, have any family back home?" she asked, grinning.

"i used to, once a small family me, Liza, Mom, when she visited and Sarah, my sister, she's no longer with us sadly. There was this girl who lived across the road called Therese Quentin, who was like family to me, til she vanished into thin air aged 9. you?"

"got my sister and my dad, I'm happy I got them they've supported me through thick and thin" she said smiling gratefully to herself as if they where there.

"two questions." I said abruptly

"hit me." she said immediately smiling at me.

"what happened to your mom?" I asked naively hoping I wouldn't upset her she twisted her face in confusion

"i dont particularly know, they said that she is a soldier in the 82nd airborne and she has to be protected at all costs. she's, "important." she answered giving the 'speech marks' motion. "next"

"what do you call thick and thin?" I asked, once again trying not to upset her she looked over to Dave acknowledging I asked her something

"i had a brother who died in a car accident coming out of West Virginia 2 years ago, I was the driver of one car. My car flipped and my brother snapped his neck he died instantly, there was another victim who died, a woman, about your age, in fact she looked like you allot, I'm just trying to remember her name..." she said thinking hard trying to recall that name, I thought of Sarah's accident in the same year and place

"Sarah?" I said unconsciously Olivia's face lit up.

"that's it! Sarah, they didn't state her last name, wait a minute, your sister-"

"-was called Sarah" I said looking down at my boots as I walked.

"shit! I felt so guilty before thinking that it was my fault my brother died but now, oh shit!" she gasped in shock and guilt. "geez! I'm sorry" she said trying to hold back tears.

"no worries, it was a car _accident_ it was no-ones fault, neither of you were drunk or driving under the influence or any of that crap" I assured forgivingly she tearfully raised an eyebrow.

"wow, I'm surprised at how well you're taking all this" she retaliated

" you're a friend and a team member, the least both friendships and team relationships want, is tension. what happened has happened, what we do now wont change that. But we can forgive and forget. A saying my mom used to say to me all the time." I responded reassuring her "how did she go?"

"a drunk driver forced forced me to swerve into oncoming traffic, a flat bed truck smashed into my car causing it to flip, and that's where my warnings to my brother to put his seatbelt on came as a lesson, as we flipped upside down he fell out of his seat landing on his neck, snapping it and killing him instantly. Both sides of the highway stopped. Sarah ran out to see if we were okay when a car driving at high speeds smashed into hers causing it to flip as well, her lower body got crushed underneath the wreckage she was screaming out loud. I freed myself from my car and limped over to her I had my fair share of injuries that day, she was in hysterics, I calmed her down a little asking her questions that would distract her and make sure her responses were good. medical training. I think she mentioned you when I asked about her family, she said you were lucky to be alive after birth, what was that all about?" she asked confused

"like you I've had my tough times, when I was born, I had a rare gene disorder, a supposedly terminal illness, until they found some lab genes, whatever that was. They implanted those and I 'miraculously' survived, I only found out who's genes they actually were a few days ago." I answered

"Jennifer's" she finished almost like she knew

"yeah, carry on." I said with a curious look

"Sarah pointed to an unconscious woman in her car and told me to get her out so I did with a massive struggle. When I got back the ambulances and fire crews had arrived, but Sarah was coughing blood and shaking like a leaf, there was no way she would survive, I started crying, over someone I barely knew, she had tried to help me and it ended up like that. I told her I was sorry I felt unnerving guilt in my heart, she was lying there trying her hardest to stay alive but it was a futile attempt she died on the scene and I was taken to hospital along with the passenger of Sarah's car and the drivers who crashed into us. The drunken driver was imprisoned for causing death by dangerous driving and drink driving. I was visited by a rather depressed looking Liza, she never told me why but now I can sort of guess, I asked if I was mentally fit to continue my career as a ghost I said yes obviously, but I only came back a month ago and my armour had apparently been wrecked and I would need to use the standard issue crap until a replacement chest piece could be added. That's when I was out on a mission with alpha and we were ambushed."

"ouch! Sounded painful, for both of you." I said "how old are you?" I asked. I kept saying my thoughts aloud, maybe its just another Burke thing.

"32" she smiled "on Tuesday" she added, her birthday was coming? I wonder if she gets a day off. "what about you?" she asked

"ten years younger" I responded happily she smiled back somewhat gratefully I didn't have a gun to her head for the whole accident thing

Dave stopped and gave a hand signal to split up and find suitable cover so we did, we were here already? I jumped into the back of a flat-bed truck and hid myself under a throw. With all the junk around me I was barely visible, outlines of the trucks appeared on my HUD: they were 100 meters away and closing, all of us attached silencers to our weapons. I could see the outlines of my team-mates they were in position. while I had the chance, I opened up a small segment of the back, only just enough to allow me to fit the barrel of my gun through unnoticed, my HUD showed me a line as to where my bullet would end up if I fired I adjusted it accordingly, it was rather awkward at first but I got used to it. By the time that had happened, the convoy was close enough for the attack.

"3,2,1" Dave counted "go!" they all sprung out of cover, apart from me, I burst the tires of the trucks, they weren't going far. I could hear the ultranationalists scream and shout as the team shot them all down. I eventually sprung out of my cover and shot the drivers of the trucks, they had no chance of firing their weapons before we had killed them. "regroup!" Dave ordered, we acknowledged, "no doubt the ultranationalist leader is waiting for the convoy, lets give him a little surprise, you are lucky you missed a truck Burke" he smiled

"i couldn't see that one sir" I responded awkwardly

"no biggy, we needed that one anyway, Charlie, you look more Turkmen than most of us, get in the truck and drive, we will hide in the back." Dave grinned, Charlie nodded and got in the truck. The rest of us settled in the back of the truck amongst some ammo boxes. Charlie began driving the truck around the inactive ones and down the path for about five minutes. He came to a gentle halt. Charlie got out of the truck, I could hear the muffled talking between the two, then footsteps getting closer... and closer... and closer I could only just see the leader lift a couple of boxes.

"boo!" someone shouted, it was Cohen, she fired a burst of bullets at the leader. He dropped dead in seconds.

"get off the truck!" Dave shouted with a tone of concern. We all frantically got up and off the truck. Dave kept running, and we saw it as logical to run at his heels. Suddenly the whole warehouse had blown up. Cohen looked at us with a mischievous grin and began laughing rather menacingly. "nice one Cohen!" he giggled out of pure disbelief.

"Ginger, you're safe to move in now" Dave informed

"roger that alpha team standby at landing zone: Delta Mike"

"roger, standing by"

I heard Ginger approaching the landing zone and finally, touchdown, we all approached the chopper and got on the ride. Ginger turned to focus on us. "Liza wants you all in Byramaly its not too far from here but there is deepening concern of Umbra units taking civilian children and making them into child super soldiers, but this time we are in luck. DTU was nearby you and they spotted a weapons research facility and made off with those, before blowing the facility up and destroying the evidence." she assured pointing to a small selection of guns. "those guns can kill an umbra unit instantly." she added. Olivia turned around and a look of recognition hit her face as she grabbed one. But she shook it off and began passing the guns around to us all. I nodded in approval to Ginger and she gave the thumbs up. Before long we were at Byramaly. We all discarded our Ghost issue weapons reluctantly, the most reluctance coming from Amy and Olivia, they had become attached to their Ghost issue weapons over time I was guessing, Amy, due to her speciality took the "XUM004" sniper rifle, Olivia and Joe took the Compact "XUM002". Charlie, took the "XUM003" heavy assault rifle while Dave and I took the balanced "XUM001". My guess on the XUM code was: the X was eXterminator U was Umbra M was Model but I could've been easily wrong. We dismounted and followed Dave through the winding streets of Byramaly.

Dave stopped us as we ran into our first group of elite Umbras, this lot were older, and tougher looking than the standard Umbra units. The elites looked at us only once before realising who we were. But by then we had our guns levelled on them, I was the first to fire these new weapons. The thump from it was quite big, but the elite Umbra was screaming out loud, his demise was inevitable judging by the size of his wounds. His female comrade was next, she looked at us and began begging us not to kill her, I pitied her. She wore torn kevlar plutonite armour covered with toughened rip stop fabric, a dark half skirt covered the back of her legs and there were tools and ammo dotted around in large numbers over her body her eyes were glowing yellow, just like that woman's on the travels back to Indiana her hair wasn't the right colour or style though, this one's was blonde and in dreadlocks as the one on the travels was jet black and straight.

"Dave wait! Hear her out!" I implored to Dave he was too late to listen and blew a hole in her stomach. She cried out pathetically. I realised that these elite Umbras had been forced into being who they were just as much as their fresh young victims. Another one of them tried helping his fallen female comrade but the attempt was futile she wouldn't live, I watched as he held her hand, crying in remorse. Eventually, she passed away. The last elite of the small group began crying out loud in hysterics. Amy couldn't bear to watch any more. She ended his emotional strain with a XUM bullet in his head. The children they were escorting ran away into a nearby building. Dave was distraught. I frowned and slapped him across the face, not because I was angry at him, to knock some sense into his pea sized brain. He shook his head to shake out the utter disbelief that I had just done that, so was I, to be honest.

"i needed that" he remarked smiling gratefully at me. We followed him for about two blocks, when we met our next Umbra, he told us to stop a minute. This time we did. He lowered his gun

"i dont want to be your enemy, I was forced into this. If I dont do what they tell me to do, they will kill my family" he cried Dave lowered his gun.

"come with us, we can help you." he answered holding out his arm, as the Umbra unit reached out. A grenade landed at his feet Dave grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the explosion zone but it was again too late the umbra had sustained allot of damage, he was thankful, but dying. As he died I noticed his eyes change colour from yellow, to green.

Dave closed the Umbras eyes sorrowfully and laid him against a nearby wall. He brought himself together and moved on for another 3 blocks.

"Alpha! We have reports of heavy troop movement in the hell's gate area again, this time no tanks, get over there, we'll handle this mess!" another ghost team leader assured.

"you got it, where's ginger?" Dave inquired

"Ginger is at LZ alpha 8, waiting for you get over there quick!" they shouted concerned.

"you got it Bravo!" Dave assured. He sprinted through the city into a hospital, I could hear the blades of _chariot of fire_ spinning, we ran up the stairs and kept going until we reached the final flight, he sprinted down a corridor to the exit with a helicopter sign in LED lights above it. As I ran behind him, I sensed something wrong.

Suddenly a plank of wood swung out in front of my face. I dropped to the floor and skidded to avoid it as I did I shot the culprit dead. An ultranationalist pig hiding.

Amy stopped and looked at me worriedly

"I'm fine" I informed picking myself up. Amy couldn't resist shooting the ultranationalist in the ass.

"YOU STUPID ULTRANATIONALIST LINT LICKER!" she screamed, my eyes widened. As I froze in my spot she cooled off eventually.

I caught up to the rest of the team. Dave kicked open the door and mounted into the chopper as quick as possible, we followed closely behind. The chopper looked dusty and had some shiny new holes in it, she must have landed under fire somewhere. Ginger turned to face us letting her trainee co-pilot take control for a minute.

"Hell's gate is experiencing heavy bombardment from sandstorms, and the ultranationalists have seen this as their chance to group up and wreak absolute hell on Turkmen lines in hell's gate, but I dont think that is their plan, we had our first contact with the legendary Umbra 019 before and she said that Iran is massing up alongside these ultranationalists and they are planning on moving in on Kazakhstan and Pakistan, with the help of Iran, who knows what dangers they will pose. All I can really say is that, with the sandstorm I am gonna have some real trouble landing the firebird so if I'm late I'm sorry."

"no problems, what are our objectives?" Dave asked.

"they have what looks to be a dirty bomb, and a weapons cache on site, secure that and I think there is a downed chopper that might need a good charge on it, it's meant to have state of the art equipment on board, and we cant salvage it, so it looks like a destroy it and run job. Whatever you do, dont blow up the dirty bomb or the weapons they are useful."

"you got it, take us there!" Dave adjured.

"oh dinner is in the back sorry its a little late and not up to scratch, but hey I'm not the one who cooked it!" Ginger smiled. She turned around and took control of the chopper, she began talking to her trainee and laughing with him, we wolfed down our dinner and in no time, we were back at hell's gate. It was the usual drill, get off the chopper and follow Dave. Amy was a little agitated for some reason, she had gotten really pissed off by something or someone, maybe it was the fact she wasn't carrying her ASR32 with her, or the ultranationalist she shot in the ass before. No one knew. I raised my shemagh over my face and Dave gave out some fog-proof goggles. We all put our goggles on, a sand storm was coming in and fast.

I ran with Amy, all they way she was deadly focused on the task at hand we ran all the way to the old battlefield, it wasn't completely clear of allied forces, the Jaegers were still very much at large and we had heard that every so often the cobras would encircle the field and check the coast, but up til now, the Jaegers had been told the coast was clear, they knew of our arrival. I suppose I had to thank them really, alongside the Lithuanians they had to be some of the best soldiers I had seen in a long time, apart from the Ghosts of course. We ran out into the Jaegers firing line, I watched them closely, not one of them even jumped, they just stood still but they kept a watchful eye. As I turned around my HUD began showing the hotspots of enemy soldiers "Burke, Cohen and Diaz, take out the dirty bomb guards and the rest of us will cover your advance. When you have done that cover our advance to the weapons cache and we will secure that until the chopper arrives. Joe when the dirty bomb is clear of enemies, cobra 2 will need your help clipping it on to the pulleys when you have done that regroup on us. Cohen when it comes to the chopper demolition, you plant the charge and meet us back on the chopper. Got it?" Dave ordered we nodded, Cohen took the lead and began roadie running to the dirty bomb , it was registered as 400 meters from our location and decreasing. We followed her taking heavy gunfire as soon as we reached 200 meters. I could hear Dave shoot at them and the gunfire thinned. Amy suddenly stopped and irritably took down a few herself, she shouted curses and swore every time she killed one. I felt like confronting her about her sudden bad mood, but I thought it was probably best to leave her be. Eventually the gunfire stopped, everyone had been taken down by Dave's group or Amy. Amy caught up to us after her killing spree. Cohen entered the bunker where the dirty bomb was housed, I followed in after her and took the lead, therefore in theory I would be taking all the shots if anyone fired at us. One soldier tried to engage us but Amy shot him down instantly. Cohen checked the premises.

"all clear!, let's wheel this thing out for the cobras!" Cohen informed. Dave, Jaden and Charlie all helped Cohen while Joe Amy and I kept watch. The process of pushing it out was quick, and Cobra 2 was already in the air. Joe began strapping the dirty bomb to Cobra 2's ropes while we headed for the weapons cache. My HUD displayed 1KM away. _geez I think I'd die of exhaustion quicker than bullets!_

Dave began roadie running toward the target, with Diaz and Cohen following close behind. No enemies were visible until about 100 meters off, and they hadn't spotted us yet Dave took a stealthy approach and spread us all out, we got behind anything solid and covered Dave's approach he quietly ran to the first enemies and threw a lethal smoke grenade at the enemy, he ran from the area as the enemy began choking to death. Before long the gas had cleared and we secured the area a few soldiers still lived and tried to engage us but their attempts were pathetic and we shot them all dead. Five minutes later, the chopper arrived and we helped clip the weapon boxes to the ropes. Joe caught up with us eventually and we moved on towards the crash site well Cohen did, we headed out for the extraction zone about 300m west of the crash site. Ginger was there and waiting when we got to the extraction zone. The sandstorm was getting closer. We all mounted in and waited for Cohen. "okay charge set I'm coming back now" she assured.

Even though the chopper was deafeningly loud, I couldn't help but notice the distant gunshots. A symphony of Heckler and Koch and Kalashinkov weaponry.

"did anyone hear that?" I quizzed baffled, the tank ruins obscuring my view of the eastern side.

Amy frowned "yeah, must be the Jaegers" she answered optimistically, I sort of gathered she was hoping it wasn't Cohen under fire.

"Cohen better hurry the hell up, or we are gonna be grounded because of brownout!" Ginger called impatiently. I looked out of the west side. The storm was dangerously close.

Two more gunshots were heard, followed by five more. The winds were picking up and causing obscurity of my view on the eastern side but I could see the intense flares from the guns, they were getting closer.

Amy grabbed her sniper rifle from the trunk and pulled up her sniper rifle's scope to meet her eye, no doubt for a closer look. As more shots were fired the battle got closer. Until an awkward silence. A limping, struggling figure could be made out by then. Amy's eyes widened, but she kept tracing this one figure. They got weaker by every step, weaker... weaker... and weaker until the figure finally collapsed into the dust of hells gate. Amy threw her sniper rifle behind her and took my G709 from the trunk. She darted away from the chopper with great speed, Dave tried pulling her back in a confused motion, but she was too fast. Tangos appeared on my HUD and Amy began engaging them.

One adversary shot her in the leg, she dropped to the floor close to the fallen figure. She turned over and waved her hand in desperation to me and the team. I acquired my M81 and ran to her aid, after a few meters I could see Amy was crying in anguish and remorse. She was crawling towards the fallen figure relentlessly. Suddenly, I stopped dead in my tracks. _Where's Cohen? _All around me became a blur, nothing made sense any more. The only things I could see clearly was Amy and this figure. The ultranationalists, the Gunfire, the hard pounding of the wind and sand in my face had become rejected feelings and images in the back of my mind.

Amy was cradling the mysterious figure, she checked their breathing and heartbeat. She took her hand away buried her head in theirs and began crying. "Cohen" I whispered, I didn't even feel my face twist so painfully as I realised the shocking truth.

My focus turned to an adversary with a metal pole in his hand, violently swinging it at Amy, who was making a pathetic effort to defend herself from the terrifying attack. Her head eventually hit the floor, she was out cold.

"Kristen look out!" someone screamed. I tried to move but I was frozen in my spot. A shoot of pain travelled from the the back of my head to the front. My hand raised unconsciously to to feel the pained area, It was warm and damp. My arm dropped back down to my side. Another violent pain hit my lower back and yet another to my head. I had just managed to regain my focus I lifted my hand to my view, blood, not allot but enough to realise these men had injured my skull badly enough. Everything just went blank after that.

…...

A sharp sting forced me awake. My hands were trapped in shackles. My ankles were too. I was suspended on some sort of rack. A bearded man stood before me with a red hot pole in his gloved hand. He had a menacing look in his eye. I frowned at him, I wanted him to know, I wasn't afraid of him. His response to it was one that made me regret my expression. He nodded to someone behind me. The rattling of metal made me curiously afraid. An abrupt but sharp and strong sting ripped through my back, as six sharp objects tore through my skin. I couldn't help but let him know of my torment and hurt.

"where's Amy?" I questioned, he didn't answer, his smile just got broader as he looked over to a man holding a bucket fearfully. He mumbled something in Georgian and began laughing. His little helpers followed after, but the tone was more fearful and joyful. He turned back to me and spat at the ground next to the rack.

"she is in a cell, you two will be sharing each others torment. But the ways of torturing her are much different to yours." he answered his accent was strong in a Georgian context. "now, for a little wake up call!" he added, dropping the hot bar back on to its heater and snatching the bucket from the bearer. He began tipping out its contents on to my face. Ice cold water, my face numbed with the bitterness of it. As I recovered from the shock of it, he threw the bucket on the ground and grabbed the hot iron again. He plunged it into my left side. I yelped.

"stop, please" I cried, he laughed at me and dropped the iron bar. He pulled out a knife and pushed it up against my cheek, my eyes widened and my breath got fearfully shallow.

"why should I stop for you when the world never stops for us?" he hissed pushing the blade further, my skin was almost at breaking point.

"because targeting two people wont solve anything!" a woman interrupted. The man's attention quickly turned to her.

Her hair was jet black, her skin, pale and her eyes were ghostly blue, she looked fearless. I recognised her almost instantly, she was the woman Amy had tried to kill on the way to Indiana. She was wearing black cargo trousers and a shirt that hugged her athletic torso. And that red shemagh had disappeared from around her neck.

The bearded man quickly let down the knife cutting my cheek, I let out a quiet grunt in response, this woman didn't regret saying a word to him.

"did anyone ask your opinion!" he screamed at her, grappling her by the neck.

"no!" she answered in contempt.

"i have half a mind to kill you right now!" he responded, his voice still raised.

"you already did you fat ass hole! You killed me when you kidnapped me 15 years ago!" she argued, she had really ticked him off, he let out a scream of pure anger, but suddenly turned and stabbed me. I was too shocked by It all to even express my hurt. The woman's face twisted in torment and confusion.

"hey! me pissing you off is between you, and me. She ain't involved! I think she has had enough for today let her down!" she shouted, my torturer cooled off and reluctantly acknowledged. As he let me down exhaustion got the best of me my knees buckled and I collapsed. The bearded man ignored me and I turned my attention to what he was doing, he was choking that woman and punching her in the stomach and the face, she looked at me sorrowfully and hurtfully, I wanted to get up and give him a taste of his own medicine, but by the time I had conjured up the courage, two men grabbed me and dragged me away, I looked over my shoulder to find my defender being strapped into the rack and an XUM rifle was being prepped.

I was dragged down a dull damp corridor I looked around at the inmates, each one looking at me and nodding as if I was their saviour. One man opened a cell door and the other man threw me in I landed hard on the damp, cold concrete floor. One man came in with a metal rod, in response I fearfully scampered to the corner of the cell. Surprisingly he walked straight past me and hit a curled up figure on the back, they suddenly jumped out from their position and frowned at him. It was Amy.

"your little friend is back!" he smiled menacingly "aren't you gonna say hello?" he hissed. Amy looked at me and her face lit up with joy she jumped up and ran toward me

"Kristen!" she gasped but as she got half way, a metal pole hit her in the torso so hard I could have sworn I heard a rib crack she fell to her knees groaning in torment.

"too far" he laughed walking out of the cell and shut the door, once they had walked off out of site, Amy painfully got up and struggled over to me. She threw her arms around me and began sobbing. I numbly returned the favour.

As I did she sniffled and touched my knife wound. The sudden sting caused me to flinch "sorry" she whimpered. I tightened my grip of her. I noticed something, odd. There was someone else in the cell with us. They were laid on their side with their back facing me. I looked them up and down and noticed a familiar sight. Their hair it was long and straight mostly but it had some small braids dotted around with beads at the end, it was well layered where it wasn't braided. Olivia, it had to be with a hairstyle that unique. Amy slowly let go of me and crept back to her original spot and pose. "we'll get outta this Amy, I promise" I assured hopefully moving to examine Olivia, like me and Amy she was stripped of her armour. Her wounds were crystal clear through the holes, the blood from there was still fresh. I placed my hand on her shoulder and turned her on her back, she was ice cold. I noticed two pieces of paper in her pocket. I pulled them out one was a note and was labelled 'to Sophia' and another was a photograph of Cohen and Amy smiling side by side, they looked so happy. The note, was obviously private, so in respect for Cohen, I didn't read it. But I noticed another note poking out. I pulled it out of her pocket and it was labelled 'Krissy' I took it and stuffed the other note and photograph in my pocket.

I examined her face. She looked Gentle, calm almost like she expected death, her body didn't smell bad, she actually smelt of lavender she had been preserved somehow. I counted eight torso wounds and two leg wounds. She did well to survive as long as she did. I'm guessing relaxation would help homoeostasis hang in there a little longer.

I left her to rest in peace for now and read the note in my initial position before I examined her.

_Kristen,_

_I knew this would happen sooner or later so I prepared a note for Sophia, my sister, while you lot weren't looking. Hopefully you've heard of privacy and you wont read it. She works as a weapons researcher for Heckler and Koch, those XUM guns, designed by her, tested by me. Any way she is based in design office 4. if its not too much hassle, could you give her that and the photograph? I'd much rather you do it than any one else. Amy is no doubt emotionally unstable, and I know this sounds stupid, but I trust no one else but you two not to read such a thing. I trust you with my life, you're a Burke I've made my assumptions that the Burkes are a trustworthy family from the stories my nan told me. I'm sorry if I've burdened you in any way._

_Livvy_

_P.S look in my right pocket, use it wisely, If I heard those guys correctly, you'll need it._

I did as the note said and dug something out of her right pocket, it was her HUD, _how did they miss that?_ I stuffed it into my own pocket and tear began falling from my eyes.

"genius Cohen, total genius" I croaked my voice only just out of Amy's earshot. I sunk to my knees and rested my head on Olivia's cold, dead abdomen and cried. I somehow managed to cry myself to sleep until I was woken up by someone rowing and roaring at someone else. I turned my head around to find it was that woman from the torture chamber arguing with a Turkmen prison guard in his native language. She was heavily bandaged and even that couldn't stop the blood oozing out from her torso. The prison guard shook his head in disgust and pulled out his pistol. He shot her 4 times but she didn't even flinch. blood was pouring from the wounds. I couldn't bear to watch, I put my head in my hands and tried to hide from all of the terror around me.

I heard the prison guard open the cell door and before long, someone grabbed me violently by the arms. Amy jumped out of her corner and tried fighting the men taking me away, she was howling out loud punching him and kicking him. Another guard walked in and grabbed her arm. He began forcing her to punch the wall. Her hand was pouring with blood and she was holding it tormented.

They pushed me into the torture chamber and strapped me into the rack. Two men were sitting in ambition in front of a tray which contained two scalpels and a cotton pad. The bearded man appeared again, he pulled up my shirt to reveal the side of my abdomen that was still fresh and wound free.

"have fun boys" he hissed. The two men ugly, scarred, and , evil both grabbed a scalpel and moved toward me. I began struggling, and yelling out loud. I was terrified, well, that was an understatement.

They knelt down so their eyes were level with the open area of my abdomen. Four other men held me still "meet Ivan and Aleksandr" he said gesturing to Ivan on the right and Aleksandr on the left, two men looked up at me and smiled mischievously "they got bored so I'm letting them have some fun, dont worry, we aren't interested in rape or sex." he added, I was somewhat relieved I hated the idea of sex.

He grabbed a pole and forced it into my Jaw keeping my head in and uncomfortable upward position as a hot iron was plunged into my collar bone the agony was unbearable. After a while the bearded man let me free from the uncomfortable positioning my head was in Ivan began moving the scalpel toward my body, my breathing began getting shallower and shallower and shallower, and finally the scalpel met my skin, he cut two vertical lines and two intersecting horizontal lines, a 9 square grid the hurt got to me and I let out a yelp. The bearded man turned around and punched my in the face "shut your whining!" he shouted _that ain't gonna help you bearded bitch! _

"noughts" Ivan asked

"no, crosses" Aleksandr insisted

they where playing noughts and crosses on my stomach? "okay I go first" Ivan insisted cutting a circle into the top left of the grid I held back my affliction Aleksandr cut a cross underneath Ivan's naught, Ivan cut a circle next to the existing on he had already cut, Aleksandr cut a cross in the top right corner Ivan smiled and cut his next naught in the middle Aleksandr was trapped, It was a two way win on Ivans side. He frowned and cut a cross in the bottom right, and Ivan cut his in the bottom middle. Aleksandr growled and shoved the scalpel into the top of the grid. I grunted. A medic walked over to me fearfully and cleaned my wounds, after that, he dressed them. I felt sick, all the things they did to me had more effect than just pain and scars.

After I was bandaged up I was unstrapped and taken back to my cell, a man walked out of the cell before I was thrown in. I got up gingerly. Amy was curled up against the wall, shaking and whimpering like an abused child, I knelt down to her level and gave her a reassuring hug. "we WILL get outta this, I promise" I assured her. Her head was bleeding heavily and she was clenching her upper stomach. "lie down a minute" I told her, she painfully obeyed and lied down, I moved her hand away from her torso.

"tell me where it hurts" I ordered she nodded I gently pressed against her stomach no response I moved along to the opposite side, nothing. I moved up to the ribs big response she writhed and howled out. "shit!" I gasped.

"broken ribs, four bones in her hand share the same story and a fractured skull." someone said numbly. I turned around and it was my defender looking through the bars. She looked pale, and discomforted.

"what happened?" I asked.

"she was punished, they punched her kicked her forced her to hurt herself, smacked her head into a wall etcetera." she responded not once looking like she was liking or agreeing with the punishment.

"thanks, for sticking up for me back there." I said gratefully. she looked down at the ground in guilt

"I'm just sorry he turned on you like that, I got my fair share of punishment though" she said gesturing to her heavily bandaged torso.

"who are you?" I asked, she helped me out I at least want a name to go on.

"Umbra 019" she said numbly, "same question, for all three of you" she said

"i'm Kristen, my injured friend is Amy and my, uh, dead one is Olivia" I answered she moved up towards the bars.

"Kristen Burke?" she asked

"yeah" I said confused. She smiled broadly.

"I've been looking for you all over the world!" she shouted out gleefully

"huh?"

"I'm your old friend, Therese" she said joyfully.

"okay prove it, what was our secret hideout called?" I asked smiling.

"we didn't have one" she answered with an eyebrow raised.

"it is you! This is where you were taken?"

"sadly yes, along with many other children from around the world, those grinding noises are the machines they used on us, we were transformed from innocent children, to child super soldiers through painful experiments, I tried breaking free from their grip but my throat was cut accidentally by one of the cutting machines, I could have died. I wish I did. When I turned 16 they made me a fully fledged soldier, an Umbra, not an elite yet, 2 years ago, I was made a super-elite, the best of the best, It allowed me to survive the XUM shot before.

But I escaped this place, without a word, and became a mercenary for hire along with a few others, the DTU company has grown since then, but the original Umbras who escaped with me are leaders, or dead. The name Therese should no longer apply, so around umbras or DTUs can you not use it?

this secret organisation has haunted me for my whole life since the experiments, to have them resurface like this again, makes me want to warn civilians of them, but, then they would know I was a DTU, and kill my family and anyone I told. So I took myself outta the gun for hire business to join the fight, disguising myself as a woman named Miranda, sadly I had to kill her to disguise myself as her. That was outside of these walls, inside, I'm me

Listen, I'm planning on breaking you outta here, I've already leaked where you are to the ghosts and a rescue team is inbound, but the sandstorms are making it difficult so it might be a matter of days before anyone gets here, before then, I have to make sure you two live. I could have saved Olivia but she would have suffered for the rest of her life. I know anyone would much rather have a soldier dead than suffering." she said looking down at the ground. Her eyes where ghostly blue, kinda creepy but it wasn't her fault, underneath, I'm sure she was desperate to be human again, and not driven by killing.

Suddenly Amy began coughing up blood and groaning. she was bleeding from the inside? Therese looked at her with sheer fear and concern all over her face, she frantically began sorting through the keys and opened the cell door. She ran to Amy's side, I moved out of the way quick. Amy gently loosened her movements with a deep breathe outward. "shit! No you don't!" Therese yelled

"what's going on?" I asked her in deep concern. Therese put her head in her hands, she abruptly removed her head again and checked her pulse

"she's dying!" Therese answered.

I staggered backwards and pinned myself against the wall. I just collapsed. Amy, was dying. I could feel tears well up in my eyes. She had only broken her ribs, how is this possible? Therese raised her fist upward and let it fall like a hammer against her heart, she repeated the process and kept trying. Finally Amy's coughs could be heard and her whimpers. She was alive! "HEY!" she called out toward the corridor. A prison guard ran over to see what happened he looked at Therese in a confused manor. "she needs medical attention, so I'm taking her over to the hospice area to be treated if Boris asks later" she added the guard took one look at Amy's state and let her through, Therese lifted Amy into her arms and carried her over to the medical area. About a minute later Therese came back looking somewhat happy.

"who's Boris?" I asked her.

"the bearded lady" she giggled, the guard violently whacked her across the head with a metal pole, she just turned around and looked at him. "what! even you hate him!" she yelled to the guard

"yes I know that but, it feeds my wife and kids, and If I dont do what he says you know what happens" he responded in an agreeable tone. Therese frowned in agreement and nodded

"will Amy be okay?" I asked uncomfortably.

"I'm not sure, she's bleeding internally meaning more damage was done than a few broken bones but the medics are quite good here, they should be able to fix her up" she said looking concerned.

A guard walked in and grabbed me by the arms, he dragged me back into the torture chamber _that time already? _this time the rack was laid horizontally but the head area was on a downward incline. They strapped me in and a man forced my mouth open and pushed rag over it and held my head still by the jaw as Boris walked in with a watering can full of, well, water. "have you ever drowned before?" he asked smiling. The man pulled off the rag from my mouth so I could talk.

"no, why?" I asked back, terrified

"i was drowned and almost killed by an American, it felt a little like this" he stated The man shoved the rag over my mouth again and Boris began pouring water from the watering can on to my face, at first it was okay but as the more water came out, I began struggling to breathe, the back of my throat contracted, I was choking, I couldn't gasp for air and every time I tried I breathed in water, I was screaming on the inside I wanted him to stop. I began fighting the shackles trying to break free it only hurt more, the cold steel cut my wrists badly in the struggle, my boots were on the brink of being torn open, they were stopping me from breaking my ankles or cutting them open like my wrists. Thankfully Boris ran out of water and had to fill up. A man took the rag from over my mouth. I started coughing and gasping for air, my chest was killing. "look at you! you Weak American bitch! " he shouted barely feeling pity.

"fuck you!" I choked trying to scream at him but I still hadn't recovered properly yet.

"oh! So you want to play it like that!" he shouted irritably. He moved toward my stomach wounds and punched me right where the knife wound was. I yelled out desperately trying to break free. The watering can was full. The rag was placed over my mouth again. "someone keep punching it!" he ordered.

I tried yelling out for him to stop before he poured the water, to my surprise he stopped and took the rag from my mouth.

"what do you want from me?" I questioned trying to hold back tears

"i want you to suffer!" he said forcing the rag over my face I started screaming and struggling, in anger more than fear, I had done nothing wrong to him, just doing my job and I'm treated like I single handedly started this conflict and hurt him. I was being punished, for nothing!

He poured the water and the panic started again I could feel the tears well up in my eyes, my lungs where struggling, almost failing. A man kept punching my wound causing more agony. I closed my eyes, I wanted to die, I didn't want to go through this again. I heard the door open i was just hoping it wasn't bad news. The water suddenly stopped pouring and I heard yelps and cries.

"someone get 019 off me!" I heard Boris shout, Therese had come through the door. I began coughing and spluttering. The hold of the shackles loosened, I opened my eyes, Therese was freeing me, her eyes where red, and she looked like she wanted to kill anyone who ever touched her.

A guard ran in with an XUM gun in his hand, he aimed it at me and fired. But Therese saw it coming from way off and shoved herself in the way of it. I could see her eyes flicker from red to brown, and then back to red again. She looked down at me and gave a painful but warm smile. She turned around and walked towards him he fearfully backed up against the wall shaking like a leaf. I could see Therese's wound clearly, it was massive, she must have been in absolute agony. The guard dropped the gun and raised his arms in the air, Therese grabbed him by the neck and effortlessly threw him across the room.

Boris got up and wiped the blood from his nose. He ran toward Therese with a knife in his hand, she spun around and high kicked him in the face. He just collapsed and Therese pinned him to the floor.

"you call Americans weak, yet you depend on one as one of your best soldiers!" she shouted.

"traitor!" he shouted back

"no! I ain't a traitor, American helping an American that is loyalty, not betrayal. I escaped from you years ago! But you being the ignorant bastard you are, failed to notice!"

"but what you fail to notice is I know your weakness!" he shouted Therese gave a sudden look of realisation and unconsciously loosened her grip of him. As she did, Boris turned the tables. He punched her in the face. then turned her over and pinned her down grabbing her by the neck. It was almost like I didn't exist. She tried desperately hard to reach for the knife Boris dropped, but Boris saw it and picked it up himself. Holding it up against her neck I could see he was going to end her. I couldn't allow that I staggered over to him and kicked him in the face, he was losing consciousness, I shoved my foot into his side and pushed him off Therese when she had moved the blade from her neck. Holding out my hand for her, I helped Therese up. She looked at me and smiled gratefully. My chest was aching from the water boarding. Therese picked up the XUM gun and readied it for the onslaught of the guards when she suddenly went still. Her head jerked slightly and she fell to the floor with a knife in the back of her neck. Boris stood over her, with a bottle of water in his hand. He shoved the bottle into my mouth and squirted water out of it I was choking once more, my friend was dead and I was dying.

My eyes opened, I was still in the torture room, still trapped in the rack Boris still pouring water on my face, still choking. That man, still punching. Therese, still alive? That was some dream, I lost consciousness back there, no doubt there was damage done to my lungs because of it. Boris eventually stopped pouring water over my face, I coughed and spluttered once more. My shackles were loosened and I was dragged back to my cell, it was weird not having Amy in there I felt lonely. But Therese was around and kept me filed me in on Amy's condition.

"she's fine at the moment, they operated on her and she is recovering, give it 8 hours and she'll be back in here, they have to be gentle with her though." she said, 2 days later. She looked around with a depressed look in her eye, she puffed out, it was so cold in there I could see her breath. Something was wrong I could feel the tension in the cold damp air.

"what's up?" I broke out, I couldn't bare the tension any more. She looked out like she could see through the walls, a glimmer of hope struck her eye.

"the rescue teams should have been here by now" she puffed in concern "but it looks like they are here, brace yourself!" she exclaimed I put my head back against the wall and braced myself. About 3 minutes later, an explosion ripped through the corridor Therese peeked around the corner to see what was going on and quickly brought herself back into cover as bullets shot past her. "watch it!" she shouted. A young woman darted past us but suddenly skidded to a halt and jogged back to our cell. She fumbled with a gun on her back and eventually it broke loose, she passed it to me with a gesture to follow her.

"wait! What about Amy and the armour?" I asked, she looked at me with a pathetic glimmer in her eye and waited as Therese hauled Cohen's inanimate body over her shoulder, it had been days, but she still smelled like lavender and sulphur, not a sign of rotting anywhere. They had preserved her well. I turned my focus back onto getting to the armour room and to Amy, one problem, I didn't know where they were. I shook my head slightly, I didn't know what the heck I was doing. "'19 can you take me to Amy and the confiscatory?" I asked, remembering not to call her Therese, she turned around and nodded. Before we knew it we were walking down the damp corridors following Therese down to the confiscatory. I looked over to the slightly dazed looking young woman trying to keep up with us. "what's your name soldier?" I asked her, she looked at me fearfully.

"corporal Stephanie Watson, ma'am" she stammered, almost like she was afraid of us.

"Stephanie Watson, now that's a name I can trust! What team are you with?" I quizzed, smiling trustingly at her

"Alpha team ma'am, Captain Stanton is freeing all the other prisoners and getting them to the choppers, most of them are US army or Jaegers some however were civilians"

they were obviously too old to attain an umbra name so they were tortured to death instead, no one could know of the creation, one problem they overlooked however, was the ghosts always come home, dead or alive. We reached the confiscatory, two guards were cooped up inside, both of them aimed their rifles at Therese, shaking like leaves, pathetic.

"i know you wont do it Iggy so lets not try." Therese calmly started.

"yeah, I never could hurt you with this piece of shit anyway... breakout?" a man shrugged agreeably, Therese must have known him well, he gestured to the other guard to stand down. And both lowered there guns

"big time!"

"sweet, does that include the guards this time '19?"

"yeah, I'll have to tell the guys breaking everyone out not to kill you guys first they have a tendency to kill anyone in their path without such a thing as warning you. Anyway, infirmary key, I need it to free my friend's friend." she said, the guard unclipped the key card and threw it to her, Therese caught it without even looking at it. She looked down at the ground and set eyes on a pistol as she crouched to get it Boris stormed in and threw a knife toward her neck. To my surprise Stephanie grabbed it mid flight and threw it back toward his neck. He tried to dodge it, and to an extent it worked but it landed in his shoulder instead. He pinned himself against the wall nearby to steady himself.

Stephanie looked at me with an 'I got your back' smile. Boris yelped and began whimpering, I frowned at him disgustedly and walked over to him.

"shut your whining!" I shouted punching him in the face, I ripped the knife out of his shoulder and plunged it into his stomach. "this is how it feels to be me right now!" I yelled down his ear taking the knife out, pocketing it for a moment and punching him in his new wound. I turned to Stephanie, "you got water?" I asked deliberately lowering my voice for her. She shakily passed a bottle of water to me, it was a 2 litre bottle, in other words enough. "do me a favour and hold his mouth open for me please?" I requested she nodded and walked over to him priming herself.

Boris began begging me not to do it, oh the irony! "why should I stop for you, when you never stopped for me" I hissed, the guards and Therese began laughing at my statement. Stephanie held his mouth open while I uncapped the bottle, and shoved the water down his throat, he began choking... fidgeting... dying. A sudden burn rushed down the whip wounds on my back not painful, but the sensation was enough to notice it. I turned my head to see the guards making a pathetic attempt to stop me. Therese winked at me, the guards weren't trying to kill me, eventually I ran out of water, but thanks to the guards, I remembered the whipping. Frantically I grabbed the knife from my pocket and sliced 6 wounds down his back every time, he cried out. That's when I realised I was becoming like him. But there was one more thing I had to do.

"keep him there a minute" I ordered Stephanie, she obeyed. As I turned around I heard allot of thumping and thudding. Stephanie grunted, and it didn't sound like a very healthy grunt either. I turned around and Stephanie was on the ground, her head, bleeding Boris, standing tall over her, she was looking him in the eye not showing any fear at all. A bullet whizzed past me and blew Boris's side right open, Stephanie kicked his collapsing body away from her. Boris, the man who tortured me, turned me into a wreck, was dead. Stephanie picked herself up and we resumed our business. Therese lowered what looked to be an XUM rifle and made her way to the Infirmary, Cohen was laid on the Confiscatory desk, still looking calmer than ever. I strapped into my armour. Over the past few days I had missed it so much, if anything it would hide the wounds. Stephanie checked the coast, and kept the two allied guards happy by chatting with them, she looked so young, younger than me that's for sure.

"hey, Stephanie, how old are you?" I asked, I just had to, she looked down at her boots uncomfortably

"19 ma'am" she answered, _19? she is way too young for this shit, she cant even drink alcohol yet!_

"whoa! A little young ain't you?" I asked.

"yeah, I WAS an engineer, until about a week ago." she said, looking at me almost accusingly. I giggled

"fair enough, that will explain the fear, for the record, call me Kristen." I said, she nodded gratefully to me. "you'll get used to this eventually, I'm just about used to it and it's been about 2 weeks since I joined. The only real things I'm finding tough to get over is Cohen here, and Amy in the infirmary." I said gesturing to Cohen's body trying to reassure her, the only thing I was finding it hard to cope with, was the death. She walked over to Olivia and looked her up and down curiously.

"wow, she took allot to get her down" Stephanie gasped, she turned over her right arm and she looked to be reading something. I walked over and examined her arm, a beautiful tattoo of an angel and ghost either side of the phrase;

"Follow your heart. It's the only right way out of darkness."

The quote really spoke to me, it must have gotten her so far too, but it made me wonder if anything was on the other arm, to my luck, there was. It was more cold blooded. The ghost logo and the saying;

"I ain't from the afterlife, but I'll take you there!"

the tattoo on her left arm looked mandatory, no doubt the same tattoo would be printed on my skin when I got back to Bragg. I refocused myself and wrapped my shemagh back around my neck. And slipped on my armoured gloves. I looked around for my M81 but couldn't find it. My G709 that Amy hijacked running to Cohen three days ago, was on the table next to some ammo. I liberated my gun and restocked my ammo.

"you looking for something kiddo?" one of the guards asked me, he must have known I was looking for something.

"yeah, my M81 is missing" I remarked, I he looked up at me in realisation.

"i think it got damaged so we had to incinerate it, sorry." Iggy answered hoping to god I didn't freak on him, I felt like freaking, but it was probably best not to, right now I just wanted out of this place.

Therese and Amy burst through the door. "we gotta go, loyal soldiers have set charges all around the place. We got 5 minutes tops." Therese explained. She had Amy's good arm around her neck and she was supporting Amy. she let Amy down and helped her strap in to her armour. Obviously her hand was the most troublesome after her ribs. I reluctantly helped her strap into her leg armour, Therese needed to do other things.

"thank you both, you've been great!" Amy said. She seemed happier anyhow.

"no problem" Therese answered. She handed Amy a pistol, knowing full well that she still couldn't handle a rifle with her hand still being the way it was. Amy took it gratefully out of her hand. She looked up and half smiled at me the morphine was obviously working on her ribs. I smiled back. When I realised Stanton didn't know of the charges set to explode any minute soon. I had to warn him, but I didn't know how. _Wait! Cohen's HUD! _I dug into my pocket and pulled out Cohen's HUD.

" someone, wire me up!" I ordered, Amy gingerly fiddled about with the cables until I finally got a feed to Stanton. "Dave the remaining soldiers have set charges, you have 4 minutes maximum to get the hell outta here!"

"Kristen where the heck are you? assuming Watson is there."

"yes sir she's here, I'm making my way over to you hang on!"

"okay, don't forget Livvy" he reminded me uncomfortably, I grabbed everything that belonged to me, Cohen and Amy and ran to the door. Therese grabbed Cohen and followed behind.

"you gonna be okay Amy?" I asked.

" yeah, I'll be okay just don't run too fast." she assured.

On the count of three we all burst out of the door, Iggy and co. followed at my heels backing us up when we came under fire. I was cautious not to run too fast, for both my sake and Amy's.

Before long, we reached Stanton. He smiled at me and Amy and ran toward the exit.

_3 minutes_

Stanton sprinted out the exit followed by Jaden, Joe, me and-

Amy was on the ground. Clutching her bleeding arm and crying out. The sight was horrific I tried to make out her hand through the blood. Her hand was gone. Reluctantly, I ran back to grab her.

"holy shit!" I gasped, her left hand had been wiped clean off.

I grabbed her by her shoulder strap and pulled her up. Iggy helped her out of the building. Just in time. 6 explosions tore through the building, levelling it almost instantly.

Before long we had reached the chariot of fire.

Therese got up in the chopper and readied herself so she could secure Amy into the chopper.

"Ginger, take us to the Medevac zone, she wont make it if we waste time!" Dave ordered.

"okay, we cant take all of them, all the weight will slow us down!" ginger responded as Therese dragged Amy onto the chopper and laid her on the floor floor next to Cohen. She began to inject her with a needle.

"what's that?" I asked, still on the ground.

"sedation, it will calm her down if anything" she said, generally concerned for her

"get on Kristen!" Ginger shouted. I obeyed, but there was no room for Iggy. Adverse tank drivers nearby had heard the explosions and were making a move on the chopper, one fast moving laser guided bullet tank had already spotted us. I tried pulling Iggy up but it was no use.

"go! at least then I know you guys got out safe!" he adjured, readying a pistol. The chopper began leaving the ground, Iggy moved in to engage the tanks. I looked away, I couldn't bare to watch, Therese looked upset, really upset. She would look up for a few seconds, find her bearings then stare straight back at the floor, blankly.

About an hour later Ginger landed the chopper at the Medevac Zone, paramedics hauled Amy onto a stretcher and placed Cohen's body on another stretcher. One paramedic covered Cohen's face with a towel of some description. Therese nudged, me a little "you look pale, you wanna ride with 'em get fixed up?" she asked still looking rather upset over Iggy's presumed death.

"no, I'm okay, I'm just a little dehydrated." I answered, reassuring her. Dave handed me a bottle abruptly. I opened it and took a sip. My throat tightened not allowing the water through, I felt my lungs shrink. I coughed out the water. Wondering what was going on Charlie placed his hand on my shoulder, I jumped,. He looked at me concern invaded his face.

"are you all right?" he asked

"yeah, I'll try again, I might have swallowed it wrong" I assured, desperate to put the water boarding behind me as I took a second sip. Same outcome.

"what the fuck!" Jaden gasped. "try some Cola" he ordered handing me a bottle of cola, I sipped it, my throat accepted it. I tried the water again, my throat refused it once more, the water boarding had traumatised me, but I wasn't scared.

"you have clinical hydrophobia, it means you are unable to drink water" Therese said

"shit! How did that happen Burke?" Dave quizzed.

"water boarding." I said abruptly. He frowned furiously, he obviously wasn't happy.

Liza's face appeared in my cross com window, she was deeply concerned for some reason

"Alpha! You are low on numbers! I suggest you get over to the camp and get a replacement sniper. Kristen you need to go lone wolf for the team, a group of delta forces members has gotten caught in a hot zone full of enemies and they are are under heavy fire!"

"ginger, get this Hunk of junk to the camp site!" Dave shouted, Ginger's chopper left the ground and we set off once more...

an awkward silence overshadowed the chopper, I looked down at the floor for the whole half hour Therese had to lend a cross com so Liza could tell her what was going on.

Dave occasionally gave me a comforting look, providing I was looking back.

When that half an hour was up, Therese and I moved out of the Chopper. I turned to Therese.

"'19, where re you going?" I asked, she looked at me with a gentle smile.

"I gotta be some place, I cant really let on much, sorry." she answered, Dave also disembarked, and walked over to the large tent with the letter 'A' on the front of it.

Liza appeared in the narcom window.

"lone wolf equipment is the large tent labelled equipment, you cant miss it, once your there you'll see a large safe, the code is 8324 to open the safe, there you will find the railgun I want you to take, along with the terminator pistol and grenades launcher. Take all of those, and there should be an advanced exoskeleton to your left in the large safe, set that up and mount the railgun on to the mechanical feed arm on the back support, and take your full face helmet, that's sitting on top of the safe. that's all you have to get, but dont head back to the chopper, there is a Humvee waiting for you at the east road of the camp site, get in that and the driver will take you to the intended destination. I'll tell you more when you are in the Humvee."

I did as Liza said. The railgun, even with the exoskeleton mounting it's weight was really heavy, but I lived with it.

Once I had geared up I moved to the east road where Humvee awaited me. The Driver was an Asian man with black hair and welcoming eyes, he smiled at me.

"Kristen Burke?" he asked. I nodded.

"get in!" he said opening the passenger door.

I got in the Humvee and the driver accelerated.

Liza appeared in my HUD once more.

"what has happened is beyond me, but Delta team was just about complete with their mission when enemy reinforcements closed in on them. The Humvee will take you to the closest clear area to them, I dont want to risk the driver let alone you. Anyway. There are some light armoured patrol tanks you may want to take on or leave be, any way you put it, that railgun has a big enough punch to bring down cobra 2. aside from the tanks there is heavy sniper presence and delta team's captain is a prioritises target, they have already been hit in the back but they seem to be hanging in there. As soon as you reach the team, you are to assist and extract, then report in and wait for ginger to pick you up. Once that is over turn the lone wolf gear in and assemble with the rest of the team in the camp." she informed "understood?" she asked

"yes ma'am" I acknowledged.

"good" she said. After that she told me how to use the railgun. And what order the shells go into the barrels. The chambering and ejection of the shells seemed complex, but not too complex for my mind.

Half an hour passed before the Humvee eventually came to a halt outside the hot zone.

"thanks" I called to the driver, he smiled and waved.

I slammed the Humvee door and prepared the railgun for use, even though it's weight was being held mostly by the exoskeleton it was still really heavy. But not so heavy that I struggled to use it. The 88mm shells added to the weight, 2 armour piercing in the first 2 barrels and 2 high explosive shells in the bottom follow-up barrels. The large barrel size belittled my feminine build, the technology behind it was truly awesome, I could see why it was an alpha exclusive. I couldn't help but notice when I was pulling the chambering lever, a small piece of text;

"StreifenGewhr 2106

Designed by Sophia Cohen, H&K."

I laughed to myself and continued chambering. Once I had finished chambering, I flicked all four barrel safety catches and ordered the feed arm to house it behind my back. I took out the terminator pistol and got behind cover. An adverse patrol team was walking close by, but I didnt have time to take them on.

I snook past them in a bid to go In unnoticed. I could hear the distant gunfire of delta team my cross com stated they were 750 metres away due north of me. My sneaking worked, and before long they were out of sight and no doubt out of earshot. As I turned the corner, an APC began firing at me I skidded to a halt and ran straight back around the corner to prepare my railgun. The feed arm laid the gun on my shoulder and I released all the safety catches and readied myself.

I darted out of cover and fired as soon as the railgun locked on. Suddenly the recoil ripped me from the ground, I landed hard on my back, like some wrestler had just run over and knocked me off my feet. Dazed, I checked no bones where broken and the the railgun and exoskeleton was intact. All three where fine thankfully. I got up and ejected the brass. Liza appeared in the narcom. She was laughing.

"i forgot to say. Don't fire it standing up. It has a tendency to throw people of their feet like that if they stand up" she informed

"yeah, thanks!" I said sarcastically.

As I was collecting the brass and stuffing them in a dump bag, a tank man staggered toward me, the sight was terrifying, his skin turned black and shrivelled up. He sunk to the ground, the skin on his face burned away and started revealing his skull. He was still alive, after a while I couldn't bear his piercing cries and shot him in the head with my terminator pistol. He died instantly.

I moved on for another 200 meters, I could see the distant flashes of gunfire and even the team members shouting to each other. I got out my grenade launcher and began firing at the clumps of adversaries from behind cover.

Eventually the coast was clear enough to provide closer support. I sprinted toward delta team they were dug in deep near a building. Their sniper was up in the 3rd floor. Taking out any long range threats.

As I got closer I I saw one soldier was wounded, she was female and being medicated, she also looked weak, the wound must have been serious.

She seemed familiar. _It cant be_

"ghost! 1 o'clock!" a soldier called out. He wounded team member looked up slightly.

The medic kept talking to her and keeping her awake.

"quick! Run!" one shouted out to me I looked over my shoulder to see why.

2 APCs where closing in on the team, they hadn't seemed to notice me yet. The feed arm handed me the railgun and I changed the settings to 1 AP and 1 HE round per shot instead of the mind blowing 2 AP and 2 HE rounds.

I turned around and aimed at the APC It discovered me and began firing, all it's shots missed giving me the advantage. I knelt down on the ground and fired the railgun the APC blew up almost instantly _one down one to go_ I ejected the brass into the dump bag and readied the gun for the next shot. I fired once more no one survived.

I got closer to the team, that's when I realised the shocking truth.

That wounded soldier was not only the team leader, but my mum. I could clearly see the wounds, it looked like a tank had just fired an AP shell at her with all that blood.

The medic was an Israeli man, he looked allot like Charlie. He was comforting her lovingly and whispering to her almost like he was fucking married to her or something, I was furious, no one treats my mum like that. Especially not that bastard!

"its about time you showed up ghost" mum puffed looking up at me almost accusingly.

"sorry ma'am, excuse me a minute" I replied, gritting my teeth and trying not to be predictable.

I grabbed the medic by the neck, his shocked eyes met mine.

"why are you so fucking close with my mother!" I shouted at him I heard the slight grunting and shuffling of my mum but I took no notice.

Suddenly my helmet flew off and something like a fist hit me in the cheek.

"you are here to help us Ghost!" she shouted I moved my hand away from my face, despite her condition she still punched hard.

"Kristen?" she questioned

"hi" I answered

" what was all that about?"

" I didn't like the way he was with you!" I shouted pointing a finger at him.

She looked at me sorrowfully like it was some sort of dark secret she was keeping.

" we'll talk about it when we get home okay?" she said clenching her wound painfully. I nodded at her uncomfortably.

Despite my actions she still looked at me in the same way she did 6 years ago when she saw me face to face last.

The man I had just grappled handed me my helmet smiling pathetically like a slobber mouthed dog who just doesnt leave your side no matter what you do to it.

" we can't kill these guys!" I groaned looking helplessly at the incoming tanks and soldiers

"dammit!" mum shouted.

" over here!" a soldier shouted after taking out 6 adversaries single handedly. It was the sniper and he was pointing at the narrow winding streets behind the building that had been blocked by a wall. The wall had recently fallen down in the attack and was our only chance of freedom.

We moved out through the narrow alleys where the tanks couldn't get us even my injured mother was too fast for the enemy infantry who ran down the alleys after us.

Eventually our followers stopped following and we slowed down a bit. I called in the chopper for delta team and the chariot of fire. They where to meet me at the nearby park.

It was a five minute walk to the park. One chopper was already there, Delta team's chopper. They got on and we bid our farewells. As well as reminding my mum about talking with me when we got home.

The chariot eventually appeared and I got on. I placed the railgun in the weapon compartment while listening to Dave.

"Burke. Meet mark Kirkland. He's our temporary sniper while Amy is being fixed up." He smiled and nodded to me. Even though his happy gesture said otherwise. I didn't see him being the friendly chatty type like Amy.

"good job on the lone wolf mission by the way. Not a scratch on you, that is pretty good going. Anyway. We've had to find ourselves at Ashgabat again. It doesn't look pretty. Civilian bodies everywhere. The terrorists, as we are calling them now, have seized total control over Ashgabat and more are pouring in. it will take one hell of a push to get them out of the city. Ginger is going to land us near the monument of peace and provide close air support when needed. Stay close to me and hopefully it should run smoothly. Oh! You will need to pose as a civilian of some sort so armour is not an option." _Damn! He's gonna see the torture wounds!_ "we will get over to an abandoned building of some sort where you and I will change into civilian clothes. Command brought you an outfit from home. As they did with me. The bank is where we are headed. Despite the devastation the bank is still open and, according to Umbra 021, there are plots to seize the bank and cause numerous casualties while doing so, _today"_ he informed. I nodded in false approval of the plan

"what is the rest of the team going to do?" I asked.

"good question. Stephanie and Jaden are going to set up camp and start the assault the gear is in the back and fold out mattresses too. Joe will be with them and Mark will take a sniper position sniping anyone who gets close to camp . Charlie. You will get a Mech suit and start to take out the tanks. Feel free to do anything you like once all armoured threats are eliminated. You can go back to camp, or help liberate Ashgabat. It's up to you." he added. We all agreed and in the space of an hour we where at Ashgabat, as soon as we touched down we were under fire. But we soldiered on, mowing through the lines of enemies. We split up as soon as me and Dave found a suitable place to change into civilian gear. I had my jeans, T-shirt and an empty messenger bag for my pistol. I sat there staring at my clothes a while before finally getting changed.

Dave discovered the wounds as I unstrapped the armour to reveal my tattered under armour. I flinched when the sudden exposure to the air came as a shock.

"what happened?" he asked

"torture, long story." I said ending the conversation and and finished getting changed. I stuffed my pistol into my bag and awaited Dave.

Half an hour later we were in the bank looking like normal civilians only with a couple of scratches. I scoped out any suspicious people and counted 15 of them. But I couldn't just prejudge people like that. I made sure my gun was accessible in case I needed it and scoped out Dave. I moved his eyes slightly to the left in a gesture for me to look. I looked and found myself looking at a strange man. His hair was black and he was wearing a bulky jacket. A gun was showing out of his pocket, another suspect. About five minutes passed before anything happened. Then suddenly a man came running through the door with an automatic rifle in his hands spraying bullets everywhere. I turned my head over my shoulder in shock as the 16 men I suspected pulled out guns and held them to the distressed customer's heads. A bullet hit my back from the automatic rifle I winced, my adrenaline was pumping my back throbbing. And my brain, surging full of ideas of what to do. I grunted and pulled out my pistol. But Dave already shot him.

We were surrounded, there were too many for us to take on. So far I could see 6 civilians dead and 9 others bleeding. One of the terrorists started screaming at me in Arabic. He shoved a gun up against my head. I was surprised at how cool I kept during all of it.

"Dave on the count of 3 run out the door, if my plan works they should be dead in no time." I told him. The man who was holding a gun against my head didn't understand what I was saying. He started screaming more Arabic at me

Then with a swift move I disarmed my foe and ran for the door "3!" I shouted, Dave followed me out, as I thought, Ginger had sighted us and knew we where in trouble. Immediately the guns started firing from both sides. Me and Dave sprinted as fast as we could occasionally blind firing at our followers.

Dave got clipped in the ankle and he fell to the floor. I ran back to help him up. He got up and hobbled the rest of the way. Before long Ginger had neutralized most of them. One enemy was out of ammo. He began sprinting toward me with great speed. I turned around to take him on, only to be greeted by a shoulder barge right where I had been stabbed. I fell to the floor with a grunt. But I got up. I threw high kicks low kicks and some left hooks at him, he was dazed but that didn't stop him long. He high kicked me in the chest, I felt something crack. Clenching my chest, I groaned and coughed. He threw another kick to my stomach, which got me off balance and floored me. But before he could finish me. Dave shot him through the head. By stomach and chest was killing me. I kept coughing and spluttering. But no blood came out. Not yet. we both walked back to where camp was. Indicated by a green flare. Shot by Stephanie.

The camp was a ruin of a large building. It provided 360 degree cover should we come under fire. Stephanie was just lighting a fire when we arrived. She seemed to look at Jaden as if she loved him. They had become quite close while I was a lone wolf I guess. Jaden's looks towards her where almost mutual.

I collapsed on a fold out mattress one of the soldiers had set up. I was exhausted and in pain. Joe walked over to me and saw my condition, my coughing had gotten worse and my wounds were bleeding. While I was sleeping, Joe had stitched up my wounds. Stephanie, Jaden and Charlie where out liberating Ashgabat along with Dave and Mark. Joe stayed with me through the day to make sure my condition didn't worsen. Eventually Joe and I moved on to help in the liberation while Mark guarded the camp site. For 8 hours we ran around Ashgabat killing any terrorist that crossed us. Ginger landed so we could resupply several times before providing air support. After those 8 long gruelling hours. We all walked back to the camp site and slept like babies. Apart from mark who seemed to stay awake without fatigue.

In the morning I dressed back up in my armour as did Dave. I looked up to mark's position. Charlie was awake and standing next to him while mark sniped, his shots seemed more rapid than the day before. Stephanie numbly passed me my cross com. To which I attached to my full face helmet. She looked distant, like something was wrong. As she sat down on her mattress she had her head in her hand with her elbow resting on her knee. With the other hand, she was fiddling about with a strap on her leg armour.

"Steph?" I said.

"huh?" she responded sounding numb.

"are you all right?"

"yeah. Just didn't get any sleep last night. Marks sniper rifle is really loud." she said. Her actions that morning made her story feasible but there was something else.

"is there something else?" I asked. She shuffled uncomfortably.

"what happened yesterday was a bit of a shock. I had never seen so many dead and mangled bodies like that in my life, we just mowed those fuckers down without even a thought." she said. Again incredibly feasible.

"i know. It gets you like that. Don't worry you'll get used to it. I thought exactly the same when I came here first. But you realise there would be allot more if we didn't intervene." I said. Suddenly she perked up and hugged me.

"thanks. At least I know there's someone else who felt the same." she said.

I coughed violently. My chest was still causing an issue I was beginning to think about the severity of the damage done the day before. As I recovered. I noticed something in the distance. Heat distortion, or at least I thought it was. But that was me being optimistic. something hurtled towards the camp and Steph was right where It was headed.

"GET DOWN!" I shouted leaping on Steph forcing her down. I quickly forced her head left to reduce shrapnel damage to her face. The blast forced concrete in all directions. One piece hit Steph in the back of the head, she was still conscious but her head was bleeding. I got up off her and looked toward the source. The heat distortion disappeared to reveal a large tank. Dave limped out of the building nearby to find us in a bad situation. " Dave stay back!" I shouted he disobeyed and ran toward the tank disregarding his ankle wound.

"Steph, stay down. If you have to, go see Joe, he'll patch you up. And stay awake dont doze off okay?" she nodded numbly. I ran out to chase Dave down and make sure he didn't do anything stupid. but halfway there, I began coughing violently again. Blood started appearing. I couldn't stop there. I was right in the firing line of the tank. I rolled my eyes in annoyance and started running again. I found Dave almost teasing the tank drivers by running around it forcing the turret to follow him. But he tripped right in front of the tank. To which the tank started moving trying to run him over. Suddenly I heard jet engines as I desperately tried dragging Dave away. He got up once we were clear of the caterpillar tracks and caught his breath. I caught mine as well. "you crazy son of a bitch! You could have got yourself killed!" I puffed. He looked at me in sudden agreement.

The tables turned as Cobra 2 appeared overhead and fired a missile at the tank. But we where in the blast radius. By the time the missile was close I had made up my mind of what to do. And forced myself in front of Dave, blocking any metal that came toward him. All the pieces that hit me, Never hurt. The armour had absorbed most of it. And only a couple cut me.

"good going cobra 2" I said down the radio.

"no problem" she said

Dave and I moved back to camp. Joe was in the middle of patching up Stephanie when we arrived she was still awake but seemed blank and unresponsive. Joe looked hopeless toward her.

"what's up with her Joe?" I asked concerned for her.

"the rubble hit her hard. Come, look" he said. I walked over and examined her injury. It was disturbingly deep. "this is gonna hurt but it is a demonstration of the severity." he said. He poked the knife wound on my face hard. I pulled away wincing

"ow! What was that all about?" I shouted.

"that hurt didn't it? So you can imagine this will right?" he asked.

"well duh she has a massive hole in her head of course it will" I said sarcastically

"watch her face" he said. I looked at her face. As Joe shoved his finger into her head injury, nothing. She just laid there. Unresponsive like it didn't happen. She moved her eyes around like she was just lying down. Her hands were shaking.

"have you checked her breathing and heartbeat?" I asked Joe nodded

"both are fine apart from the heartbeat when I examined her 1st time round. I was a little rapid but last time I checked it had calmed down allot." he said. I frowned and waved my arm in front of her face. She didn't even acknowledge I was doing it. I flicked her nose, hoping it would make her blink. Still nothing.

"Steph? Can you hear me?" I asked. She groaned slightly. Finally she acknowledged.

"do you think she'll be okay to sleep?" I asked Joe he nodded

"it'll do her some good."

"Steph, you can go to sleep now if you want. Does the injury hurt?" I asked. She shook her head slightly. There was definitely something up here even I could tell that.

She fell asleep and Joe carried her to her mattress. Having found out, Jaden appeared and comforted Stephanie, he stroked her hair and looked to be weeping. I left him to it, knowing full well if I interfered I would have my head bitten off.

For 16 hours it was quiet, barely a gunshot. It left a chill down my spine. In my head I was whispering "silence before the storm." something was coming. I didn't know what but it was coming.

All through those 16 hours, Steph slept. She was still breathing, her head was still bleeding. Joe had dressed the main wound but even that was useless. The good thing was. Was Steph and I shared the same blood type. Joe had take some of my blood and given it to her to keep her going. After a while the the blood stopped coming out as fast. She had just regained consciousness when all hell broke loose.

Ginger's chopper came overhead and landed. Dave ran over to see what was up. I could see him shake his head numerous times. It didn't look good.

"ghosts get resupplied were are going to have a long day." he sighed.

We all moved to the chopper. Apart from from Steph, she was out of action. We all resupplied and moved out. Ginger moved off to do Medevac work nearby. Cobra 2 encircled the area a low speed. Her plane was smoking and it seemed to go in and out of control. She was having trouble.

_Silence before the storm..._

"what's going on sir?" Jaden asked.

"there is an absolutely massive horde of enemies heading right towards us. If we dont stop them. Turkmenistan will be lost."

"dammit!" Charlie shouted. "we're gonna get slaughtered out there!"

"no we aren't. if we have faith in ourselves, trust in each other and that fire burning in our heart, we WILL make it out!" Dave responded. He was somewhat hopeless. But he motivated us. We all moved out together none of us looking back. Jaden pulled out to look after Steph. Leaving us down yet another soldier.

When we got to the engagement position, massive was an understatement. A tremendous group of disorganised scared and tormented terrorists moved towards us. We all aimed our weapons at them apart from me. I was cunning and was setting down mines that would devastate allot of them providing they dont spread out. Once I was done, I got back into position and waited patiently. As I hoped, they walked straight into the trap. Numerous adversaries flew up into the air, all dead before they hit the ground. We opened fire on the remaining soldiers there were still a large number of enemies in front of us. Firing at us all at once. All of us fired accurately and kept cool, but after a while four of us ran out of ammo. Only Mark was able to shoot. But his ammo stock didn't last long either. We were sitting ducks. There were still numerous enemies out there.

But not a moment too soon. A loud burst occurred from behind. One adversary fell down, dead. I looked over my shoulder. To my surprise, Amy stood holding her AMP ASR 32 smiling darkly. And from behind a building came a large group of rebel umbras. Along with umbra 019. all of them where armed and capable of one hell of a battle.

We all watched as the Umbras tore through the enemy lines. Amy stayed by us sniping anyone who got away. Her hand had been replaced by a mechanical prosthetic. With a glove on, no one suspected she was even wearing one.

Once the battle was over. The Umbras had spread out and continued liberating Ashgabat. But Umbra 019 stayed with us. As we walked back to camp, we reviewed our performance against such odds. We had all agreed that with some more ammo, we would have made it. And that without '19 and Amy turning up when they did, we would have been slaughtered.

When we got to camp we were greeted by Jaden, who seemed incredibly happy.

"how's Steph?" I asked. Jaden's smile broadened

"the first sign of actual life in her head" he said. Therese immediately walked over to examine her.

I looked to her slightly concerned.

"she is well rested. The wound is deep but with some compression and some water she will be back on her feet and fighting in no time" she said

"what happened, out of interest?" Amy asked.

"a tank fired a shell at us spraying rubble everywhere and one piece hit Steph in the head" I said. Amy winced at the thought of it.

"damn"

Therese handed Steph a bottle of water, she gulped down the whole thing. _Someone was thirsty! _once she had finished drinking Therese helped her to her feet. Steph looked at Dave bravely and nodded. Dave returned the favour.

Before too long Jaegers and Latvian troops made their way into Ashgabat. The city was secure. Joe sat me down on the fold down mattress. He put his hand on my shoulder and ragged something out of my back, I howled out in agony. I looked over my shoulder with an eyebrow painfully raised. Joe held up a splinter of metal that had wedged itself in my back. The blood on it indicated the armour had done it's job as the wound obviously wasn't deep. He placed a kevlar patch over the hole in the armour to provide some temporary protection.

2 hours later the Chariot of fire landed nearby. We all got our stuff and got on the chopper. Apart from '19 she promised to meet us again and bid farewell. As we flew over Ashgabat I noticed the burning bodywork of a large attack aircraft. I tried identifying it with the cross com. It got nothing. I was told it was perfectly capable of identifying a crash site. But then it hit me.

"Ginger land here that's cobra 2 down there!" I shouted. Ginger looked out of her window encircled the crash site.

"Liza, has alpha team gotta be some place?" she asked down the radio.

"no they need rest they are going to the main camp should they need anything, why?" we all heard Liza say down the comm.

"Kristen has discovered a crash site. She believes it is cobra 2, any confirmation? Like a mayday call?"

"Cobra 3 made a mayday call about an hour ago. We believe Cobra 2 is still airborne but suffering heavy damage." Liza said. "feel free to try and get the wreckage to camp. Your Chopper is perfectly capable of carrying the craft and the pilot." she added.

"roger that, I'll send Dave and Kristen down with some ropes and a stretcher." she said. Dave and I prepared for the rescue mission.

"guys dont be wasting time okay? Steph is still in bad shape" Ginger called out as we came to land. I got out and immediately made for the cockpit of the aircraft. The pilot was female, she looked to be unconscious as she was breathing but not moving or groaning. I examined her condition and grabbed the stretcher. She looked in okay shape but she had deep wounds in her leg and abdomen as well as burns in the same place. I located the emergency cockpit release catch to open the cockpit. Then I jumped up onto the fuselage, released her from the harness and dragged her out of her seat. I hauled her over my shoulder and jumped down from the bodywork. Cobra 2's jet engines could be heard overhead she gracefully encircled the wreckage, she was watching us. I laid the pilot onto the stretcher. And moved her limbs to a suitable position.

"cobra 2, what is the pilot's name for cobra 3?" I asked cobra 2.

"Lisbeth Aalto, do you need a hand carrying the wreckage?" Cobra 2 responded.

"thanks, and we'll let you know. I'm guessing this is a rarity?" I asked, helping Dave with the pulleys, the plane wreck was still in one piece and certainly repairable

"yes a big rarity. she radioed me telling me that a tank had hit the nose of her plane rendering it inoperable before she went down."

"what about you?" I asked.

"i got unlucky. That's all I have to say. I dont really know what happened"

"ah, fair enough." I said. "Dave! Give me hand with her please." I shouted. Dave finished attaching the last pulley and helped me carry the stretcher to the chopper. I went on to attach the rope hook to the chariot of fire before we set off. Cobra 3's craft could go nowhere without that attached.

I got In and told Ginger we were good to go. We set off for camp. Cobra 2 escorted us there. Once we got to camp, Finnish medics took Lisbeth into their hands while the wreck was transferred from our hook to a Finnish rescue chopper's hook.

Then for a well deserved rest at the main camp. We ate dinner, got proper medical attention and slept for 2 days without such as a blip from enemy forces. That didn't mean we were pulling out. Hell no. things had just settled down. As for my cough. My left lung had collapsed, I was told to take it easy and not over do it once they had finished operating. Meaning I was off duty for a further 6 weeks. But even through those 6 weeks alpha team stayed at the camp. Stephanie's head injury was more serious than it looked and command had debated over bringing her home. But with the correct surgery and 4 weeks off, she was back to her old self. Mark departed back to Bravo team as soon as he got back, but before he went he had told us of how honoured he was to back us up and he didn't regret it.

I was beginning to wonder whether the enemy had backed down. But finally after 7 and a half weeks of boredom. We got news of a plot to nuke Turkmenistan. the nuke was apparently coming from a nuclear facility in Iran.

The first thing to do, was to get further Intel from the terrorist's forward command base.

We inserted via Humvee behind a sand dune, out of sight. It was just gone 12 midnight when we arrived. Quietly, we got out of the Humvee and assembled on captain Stanton.

"Amy, find a sniping position along this dune and cover us should we need you. Jaden, Joe you are with me we will cover the west side and the exit. Burke you are in command of Stephanie and Charlie. Cover the east side and the middle. Be sure to use you cross com. To give orders. Alright, Suppressors on!" he ordered. We nodded and screwed our suppressors on.

"my team, move out!" he ordered. Amy dug into a suitable spot while Dave traversed over the dunes.

"come on!" I ordered to Steph and Charlie. We hiked up the dune and waited for the dust to clear from where Dave had been before moving on. That way it wouldn't arouse suspicion. We slid down the other side and immediately moved east to the heavily guarded camp.

"spread out, 15 feet apart, one on my left, one on my right." I ordered. Immediately Charlie and Steph followed my orders and stayed approximately 15 feet away. Charlie was on my left and Steph was on my right.

"weapons cold" I informed.

"roger that, changing fire mode" Steph said. I watched her change the fire mode from auto to single shot. I gestured to lower posture to a kneeling position as we moved closer to our target. A light was on in one of the tents I could make out the shadow of a terrorist inside the tent he was reading something.

"hold fire, here's how its gonna work." I marked the guy in the tent as a target for Stephanie "Steph take him out when I say go." I ordered, she nodded and aimed at his shadow. I marked a patrolling terrorist as a target for Charlie "Charlie same order, kill him when I say go." I aimed at an enemy in a machine gun tower and readied myself.

"3...2...1..."

I had my aim deadly focused on the machine gunners head.

"open fire!" I whispered down the comm. We all fired at once barely a sound anywhere. No- one suspected a thing.

"move up, keep initial formation and weapons cold."

we moved up together keeping our speed and formation in check. I activated the thermal camera to mark more enemy troops. Six more on the east wing.

One of them was jumpy, panicked perhaps he was walking toward the body of the dead patrol unit, not yet discovered. If he is to discover the patrol unit our cover will be blown.

I marked all enemies liable to discover the situation.

"spread out, engage any enemy visible to you. Don't miss." I ordered. They scattered and engaged any enemy silently. I took out the one who was about to discover the patrol unit.

"no targets ma'am" Stephanie informed. The east wing was clear.

"good. Regroup." I ordered. They ran back to my side and we moved on to search the tents.

"Steph search the first 2 Charlie you search the second 2 I'll check the last 2 tents. Engage any enemies that appear to be an immediate threat."

"roger that." Charlie acknowledged

the moved on to search the tents. I searched the first one I had marked for me to search. I discovered a diary on the last page written on, it read:

_واليوم هو يوم جيد__, __ونحن لا نفعل شيئا من الواقع الاميركي الجهال__, __تركمانستان متمسكة أنفها في كل شؤوننا__. __وقد النموذج هو نتيجة صاروخ نووي على الاطلاق في الاسبوع ويؤمل من أمريكا__: __أنقر على وإرادة لن تبقى خارج النووية_

whatever that meant it was Intel nevertheless I took it and stuffed it in one of my pouches.

I moved into the the second tent. Find tactical plans of an assault against the Jaegers in hells gate. I relayed it to command.

"hhmm, it seems to read that the assault is planned to initiate three days from now. When the Jaeger and Lithuanian presence is at it's weakest. I'll let them know, nice find Kristen." Liza said.

I took another look before deciding there was no more Intel in the tent. "you guys finished?" I asked.

"yeah. I got a couple of pieces I was able to translate that had references to the nuke. Calling it prototype Raptor." Charlie said.

"oh you understand Arabic?" I asked him.

"yeah." he said.

"good you can help me with this diary entry." I ordered

"okay." he responded

"Steph?"

"all done here. I found a couple of bits. Charlie will have to translate them though." she answered.

"okay. Regroup." I ordered.

We all assembled in the middle of the east wing. And got back into our initial formation. We mad our way to the centre camp.

I heard a loud crack of thunder followed by a flash of lighting. _Perfect! Noise cover!_

"Amy, machine gun nest your 11 o'clock could you take it out when a crack of thunder next occurs." I requested.

"sure thing. I checked the forecast, You guys better hurry up, The storm is going to get worse. Apparently sandstorms are imminent." she informed.

As she prepared for her shot. We marked any enemies in our way. And readied our shots. The flash of lighting came first. Then the loud clapping forced the ground to rumble. I looked up at the machine gun nest gunner. He slouched back in his seat with a hole in his head.

"thanks Amy!" I said.

"no problem. I'll cover you if things get hot out there." she informed

we engaged the marked enemies, once again without detection. We moved on for a row of tents. We searched every one on the row. Grabbing any Intel we could see.

Again. We marked, engaged moved, searched and repeated until the whole centre section was clear.

"Amy, I think it is safe to move on now. The centre section and east wing is clear."

"I'll contact Dave see if it is okay to move- ooohh shit!"

" what? Amy what?" I exclaimed.

"guys hide! trucks moving in! Your 5 o'clock!"

a loud crack of thunder occurred.

"I got it!" Stephanie suddenly said. She ran over to hide at a closer proximity to the trucks. She pulled out an EMP grenade and threw it to the trucks. She waited a while until the two trucks had got close enough and pushed a button on the receiver. The trucks skidded to a halt. they were sitting ducks.

I ran around to the back of the first truck, unnoticed. I tossed in a lethal gas bomb into the back of one. And then another into the second. Before long. Any terrorists inside were dead.

"threat eliminated!" I said down the comm. I assembled with my team mates, Amy asked Dave whether it was safe to move up. He accepted and we all regrouped at the exit. We waited for Ginger to appear in the chariot of fire. Eventually she showed.

We all got in and gave the co-pilot the Intel to relay back to command.

"where are we going now?" Dave asked.

"i don't know. Command needs to examine this Intel and then we'll know where we are going from there." she informed. "but we have lost contact with Umbra 019 she wasn't doing anything that could have killed her when we made contact with her last so we are just putting it down as a blip. She said she had some interesting information regarding the nuke plot and needed you to be some place before her comm link went down" she sighed. "anyway. Lets get out of dodge" she added and we flew off.

Liza had the Intel scanned and relayed to her she had told us what was useful and what wasn't. Eventually we had a lead. The nuclear facility in the north west of Iran was supposedly building the nuke. And the power was said to be 700 megatons that wasn't a bomb capable of devastation in Turkmenistan but nearly the whole of eastern Europe and Asia would be wiped out. We had to stop it at all costs.

"you cant infiltrate the nuclear facility it's too dangerous. Radiation could spread into your bodies and ionise cells, I cant let that happen. So we are sending in some specialised soldiers to take care of the facility and find any records or orders of nuclear bombs of that scale. In the meantime, there are reports of a small town in the north eastern section of Iran being terrorised by Iranian and outside extremists. You will have to find some way of killing the leader who is rallying the troops at the town square. He is about to execute 4 Delta team members who where captured when their chopper crashed over Tejen a week ago. Kristen..." she sighed

"huh?" I answered.

"your mother is amongst them." she said sorrowfully. "i cant let her die, not on my watch. I think you will agree."

"do you know how they are executing them?"

"cutting into their necks with axes and leaving them to bleed to death." she said.

Ginger suddenly hurried up. We wouldn't get there in time if we went the pace we were going. After an hour we finally reached the small town. We looked around frantically to find a decent point to kill the executioners. Finally we sought out an empty building in which 4 of us took a window. I aimed furiously at my mum's executioner. She was looking down at the stage below her. Her head was cut and her armour was no better. The Israeli man I grappled when we had to work together, was on his knees next to her. Charlie had his sights focused on his executioner Amy aimed at the 3rd and Jaden had the 4th as the axes went up, we fired. All of our shots hit and killed the executioners, but as the axe fell from my mum's executioner's hand the blade landed in her shoulder. She cried out.

_Hang in there mum Dave is coming! _ Dave jumped up onto the stage shooting any armed extremists. The public panicked and began running and screaming. Joe and Steph cut the team members loose and then Joe saw to to mum's wound. I couldn't just stand there and watch. I ran out of the building shooting any extremists who engaged me and finally ran to her side.

"I'll be all right, dont worry if anything it chipped my bone." she puffed through her pain.

Joe started to medicate a young team member, he was about 20 with a huge scar down his face and half of his ear was missing. The axe had fallen onto his head blunt side down. To say the least, he didn't feel too good.

"thanks for the save" the Israeli man said to me.

"i didn't kill your executioner, Charlie did." I politely answered. Charlie walked up to the Israeli man And threw his arms around him.

"father!" he exclaimed joyfully

"charlie, how goes life?" he said.

"fabulous! Anyway. We'll talk later yeah?"

"okay son." he said smiling. Mum seemed to look up at him and smile sorrowfully to Charlie, Charlie half smiled back.

She was still knelt on the stage and still tied up.

"APC 12 o'clock!" Amy shouted in terror from the window.

We looked to the road at Amy's 12 o'clock, an APC sped down the road spraying bullets all over the place. One bullet hit Joe in the back. He grunted and fell onto mums shoulder, she yelped at the sudden pain.

"Joe!" I shrieked running to him. I gingerly pulled him away from mum he started howling out in pain. I could see an exit wound in his chest. I first untied mum so she could tend to her injured team mate. Then I tended to Joe, the wound looked serious I would have to take his chest armour off to dress both wounds. The APC was still firing at us. Charlie, on impulse, ran toward the APC and threw an antitank grenade at it before scampering from the blast radius.

After his sudden impulse he regrouped on us like nothing had happened.

"Guys! Bad news, the chopper doesn't sound healthy, I think it is experiencing engine trouble. Your gonna have to find somewhere to stay until either my chopper is fixed or the roadblocks into town are eliminated.

"dammit! Joe's seriously injured, is there a chance of a medevac?" Dave asked standing next to me.

"sorry no chance. They have literally just gone on high demand after a suicide bomb attack in Byramaly."

"damn! alright most houses are empty around here so we'll find one decent enough until you arrive."

"okay, I'll meet you in the town square about an hour after I tell you the chopper is okay."

"alright, good luck Ginger!"

Dave gestured for me to get Joe and follow him into the house Amy had taken over. I got Joe in my arms and followed Dave into the house. Joe was whimpering and still bleeding heavily, I carried him up the stairs and into a small room with a bed in it, it looked comfortable enough for him. Gingerly I laid him on the bed and unstrapped his chest armor, he whined as I tried my hardest to gently remove his torso piece from his body. Then being incredibly careful not to hurt him more, I removed hi under armor to reveal his muscular and incredibly bloody torso. I opened the door halfway. "lay here dont move, I'll be back in a minute." I said to him softly, he painfully nodded.

I caught Dave downstairs in the kitchen cooking. "Dave, I need a bucket of lukewarm water and a cloth." I said, he immediately left his station and grabbed what I needed, as he passed, it to me, I caught the smell of what he was cooking, it smelled delicious, but I was in no mood to eat, I wandered back upstairs and set the bucket of water on a bedside table next to my seat, I dipped the cloth in and squeezed the excess water out, as I placed the cloth on Joe's abdomen, he tensed uncomfortably at the cold shock. Eventually he got used to it and I gently cleaned the blood from his torso. I opened his medical bag and took out some field dressings, bandages and fabric tape. Gently I placed the first field dressing on his chest and added some pressure, he cried out in agony, I grabbed his hand and placed it over the dressing, he immediately added pressure as I taped it down, once I had finished, he let go,i grabbed his shoulder and sat him up into a sitting position, I cleaned the wound area and dressed it he knew what to do, every time I touched the wound he groaned in agony, I applied the bandage and laid him back down. He looked snug in the pillow as soon as he had settled down. I pulled the quilt over him but as I was about to leave him to get some rest, he grabbed my arm, and pulled me back.

"thanks, I owe you one." he said, looking pale.

"no problem, you were always there for me." I answered, "if you need anything, just give us a shout and I'll get you it." I said closing the door as I left.

I wandered tiredly back downstairs, Dave, Amy, Charlie and Jaden where sat on the sofas drinking cocoa, Dave looked up at me and smiled.

"how is he?" he asked

"he'll live, where's delta team?" I asked collapsing onto a sofa next to Dave.

"upstairs getting some rest. I think you should too, you look knackered" he responded. I shrugged and smiled as I got comfortable,

"yeah, but there's no time, Ginger will most likely be done as soon as I drop off" I puffed, Dave got up out of his seat.

"well the least you can do is drink some cocoa." he said, pouring out some warm milk into a mug, he handed me a mug and sat down next to me, I took a sip out of the mug, it was heavenly, after about an hour of sitting down and drinking cocoa, I fell asleep, my sleep was dreamless and somehow, comfortable. As I began to wake up, Dave had his arm around me and I was leaning against the front of his broad shoulder, discomfort hit me quickly, I had fallen asleep on my team captain. I raised my head numbly and looked up at him in a look of sorrow.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep on you" I said worried that I might have made him feel uncomfortable, he looked at me in a relaxed manner.

"it's okay, so long as you had a good sleep." he said, he was rather at ease with it all. "anyway, Ginger said the chopper is almost fixed, so we better get ready." he said, I sat upright, and collected my thoughts.

"did Joe ask for anything in the middle of the night?" I asked remembering what I had told him.

"nah Amy ran up to check every now and then, he was sleeping like a baby, she said you dressed his wound quite well." he said smiling. I smiled back and stood up.

"it's easier to dress when the panic of battle isn't present" I said. "I'll go wake him up"

quietly, I climbed up the stairs and into the room he was residing in, to my surprise, he was already awake.

"hey Joe, did you have a good sleep?" I asked with a smile.

"yeah It was okay, is the chopper done?"

"almost, I got to get you ready. So we can just leave right after she gives the all clear."

"cool" he said painfully sitting up in the bed. I grabbed his under armor which was heavily bloodstained but dry and still flexible, I helped him into his shirt and made sure the bandage was still in place. He shuffled out of bed and stood patiently as I grabbed his chest and arm armor. I didn't strap it up as it would have caused unnecessary pressure and I would need to check on the bandage from time to time. We both walked downstairs and met the others in the lounge. We waited for an hour when ginger finally got in contact with us again.

"hey guys, the chopper is done, I'll be over in about 10 minutes, I just hope you ain't under fire."

"nope, it's pretty quiet down here see you in 10" Dave responded, we all said our goodbyes to delta team who where awaiting a Humvee home and moved out of the house with our guns. we began running to the point placed in our HUD as the LZ some extremists where still roaming about with guns in hand but their engagement was short lived. Delta team had us covered from the house. Eventually we arrived, and Ginger was early. The chopper blades could be heard and she was in close proximity. She landed close to us and we all got in. she looked at Joe.

"That's allot of blood Foster" she said jokingly. He looked down at his shirt and smiled.

"just a bit." he said, I handed him his armour for when he wanted to put it on.

"what's the situation in this place then?" Dave asked.

"we have re-established contact with Umbra 019 thank god, she is fine and she was setting up Radio Jamming equipment in the area when we wanted her" she said, "as for the mission, a small Iranian resistance group has just grown into a small army, they have hijacked tanks and choppers ready for an assault on Sa'dabad Palace. Get there first and hold the president's office, tanks will be coming in from all sides, so If you get the chance, bolster the defenses, I wont be going anywhere and Cobra 2 is around with Cobra 4 and 5 for air support. Turkmen, Iranian and Israeli allies are flowing in to help out along with DTU, all I can really say is, good luck and dont let the president fall into enemy hands." she said, we moved off and headed for Sa'dabad Palace. "Atash Nikhad, is armed and his entourage is still active, he is willing to comply if you are ordered to evacuate him, which seems likely." Ginger added as we all got off the chopper nearby the Palace, We nodded to her and she moved off the ground and encircled the building. We entered the Palace with caution, an enemy infiltrator could have easily got in, no-one was around, we climbed up the stairs. Dave knocked on the door.

"password." someone said from the other side of the door his accent was strongly Iranian.

"Phantom Zero Alpha" Dave responded as clearly as possible. The door opened, and we all ran into the main office. Atash Nikhad stood with an AK548 in his hand, and he was wearing body armour. He nodded to us and we bolstered the defenses. A large chopper came overhead and dropped down some Mech suits on the ground outside. "Burke and Brown, get in the Mech suits" Dave ordered we opened the door and ran back outside. I jumped into one of the Mech suits and attached the sensors to my hands and head, the head ones where no doubt for movement controls so my hands where free. I calibrated everything and made sure it was in full working order. After a while of getting used to walking around, I stood next to Jaden and waited for any tank movement, Turkmen, Israeli and the DTU troops started appearing with some tanks and some trailers carrying sand bags and gun emplacements. The whole tone of the day was grim. I could see the movement of tanks, even with their active camouflage on, it wasn't hard to notice the tacks on the ground. I equipped the rocket launcher on the left arm just in case.

"Jaden, the tank tracks are visible, keep an eye out for anything peculiar." I stated.

"you got it"

I marked out any suspicious looking anomalies as enemy and both Jaden and Dave where informed. Jaden scoped out any more.

"ROE, Dave?" I asked.

"fire at will, but conserve your ammo." he answered.

Suddenly, overhead an MI81 hovered overhead and let down some Russian special forces soldiers. More of the soldiers poured in. One looked up to me and nodded. I saluted to him, I still couldn't get used to the Mech's synchronized movement. They took up a defensive position. But one Chopper got caught up in some real trouble. One of the hijacked tanks fired at a chopper with its crew still on board. I spiraled to the ground nearby. One Spetsnaz soldier ordered his team to investigate and see if there where any survivors. I fired a round from the rocket launcher at the telltale position. An explosion threw the tank in the air. The active camouflage had been crippled. Thermal sensors indicated no one was alive. Jaden fired a round from his Mech's railgun into another telltale distortion again the Cloak retracted and the tank was visible. Eventually the rebel forces seemed to give up with the stealthy approach and they retracted the active camouflage. I counted 30 tanks overall. And about 120 rebel soldiers.

The Spetsnaz began firing on the infantry and the Turkmen and Israeli tanks began engaging hijacked vehicles. Spread out away from Jaden and fired a rocket into a close proximity tank, it exploded furiously. A few tanks started firing armor piercing rounds at the Mech, I saw it as a cue to move out of sight and try to get behind them. But the Mech was a defensive vehicle not for stealth. I ditched my idea and just engaged them with a railgun. After my 6th engagement, 8 of 30 tanks where down. It had hardly even started. But just as my optimism poked through. Ginger flew around the field and marked out more tanks. 22 had turned to 42, and 100 troops had turned to 160. The rebel Tanks where moving up at high speeds, the other ghosts where in the windows shooting at any enemy soldiers who got close. As I moved back to my initial position, I could see Jaden was in trouble with a tank. I fired a railgun round at the tank, but it didnt stop firing at the Mech, it's turret faced me and began firing on me. I fired another round and Jaden fired one from his, finally the tank was beyond repair and the crew had scrambled. Leaving them to the preying jaws of the Spetsnaz and the other allies. More allies poured in and more casualties were reported. Ginger decided on a charitable move and began evacuating any injured soldiers. As she reached the other side of the field with the injured troops yet more enemies where marked. I had already engaged 14 tanks and successfully destroyed them the tank numbers at around 12:00PM stood at 38, Jaden and I where almost out of railgun rounds and rockets. We had been fighting for about 4 hours. And the fight was far from over. About 3 hours of fighting later an armor piercing round from an enemy tank hit the leg of my Mech, it was the 7th hit in the same leg, the Mech had sustained too much damage and was refusing to move, but I was in some deep shit with about 3 tanks. I couldn't abandon the Mech I would be slaughtered.

"Jaden, I need help!" I shouted down the radio. Jaden immediately came to my aid, but only had enough ammo to destroy 1 tank. He destroyed it anyway and attempted to at least move my Mech out of the hot zone. But it was no use. It just wouldn't budge. However overhead, I heard cobra 2 let off some tank buster missiles. both missiles hit the tanks, and the were rendered inoperable. The crew dispersed and were left at our mercy. To which I wasn't in the mood to show any, I fired some Gatling rounds at them and they met their gruesome end. Jaden tried again at moving the broken Mech leg, it worked. After about 10 minutes of fumbling with the leg to get back. We got it to a safe position and the chopper was on hand to take both Mechs back home once we were out. I looked at the state of the field. Bloody remains of both allies and enemies laid on the floor. Burning enemy tanks and injured personnel all over the place. But despite such a sight. Our small force had managed to get the upper hand, the enemy had fallen back and our allies were in pursuit. The Israelis and the Iranians stayed behind to look after the Palace.

"Dave, its too hot here, we are going to have to evacuate the president while the enemy is pushed back" I suggested to Dave.

"i was just about to say the same thing Kristen, good job with the Mechs you two, you make a good team." He said

"thanks, if it wasn't for brown, I'd be toast out there." I responded.

I moved inside the building and met up with Atash and his entourage. I nodded to Dave and the president moved out without a fuss, Ginger waited outside. As we got out, I recognized a Turkmen soldiers face.

"Iggy! You're alive!" I gasped, he smiled at me.

"more alive than ever." he answered.

"i need you to tell the allies that the president is moving out, its too much of hot zone over here to risk losing him in the fight!" I shouted over the chopper blades.

"sure thing kid!" he replied. I smiled and waved goodbye as I got on the chopper.

The ride back to camp was restless and silent. No one saying a word throughout the whole journey, my hands were shaking I suddenly felt cold. I hadn't been hit anywhere, the feeling was just so unreal I had ended more lives there than I had in any other battle in Turkmenistan. everyone was exhausted. it had been almost 8 hours of non stop fighting. We weren't expecting such a battle. We left the president at camp and moved off to our next objective having received official confirmation that the palace was in allied hands and would most likely stay that way.

"well, it looks like we are almost out of this mess." Ginger started. "the nuke still isn't secure, but that is what you are about to do. It's heavily guarded and to make matters worse, you will have to go without guns, we cant risk a bullet in the nuke's bodywork, it would detonate the bomb and kill you all." she added.

"Ginger is right, guys. Umbra 019 will meet you off the chopper and guide you around the facility. You will have a knife, some deadly smoke grenades and your fists. Kristen, Steph, Charlie and Jaden I want you on kill duty. Secure the facility. Dave, Amy and Joe will asses damage to the bomb, kill overground enemies and keep look out for enemy troops heading you way. Acid's team and delta team will come and take over after an hour of clear sight." Liza interrupted, she looked worried. Very worried.

We all stowed our guns away in the back of the chopper and grabbed the smoke grenades and knives. I grabbed a pair of binoculars for spotting.

About 15 minutes passed and we landed nearby the nuclear facility, I could see the missile in the launch braces, it was absolutely massive, and that was an understatement, Umbra 019 had just finished snapping a guard's neck as we approached, there was a small part of the wall that didn't have electrowire over it. That was no doubt our infiltration route. She nodded to us and jumped up over the wall almost effortlessly. Dave followed after then me and finally the rest of the team assembled.

"follow me, we are heading for the main office, it's nearby and will lead us to the underground entrance to the nuke" Umbra 019 said. We kept our heads low.

"got it!" Dave acknowledged.

I took out my binoculars and observed the Nuke's guard activities. Heavily guarded was once again an understatement. We would have to work our way up over 16 tiers to kill all of the guards and secure the bomb. But first we would have to navigate our way through the heavily guarded tunnel complex. Dave took his group and took off around the overground complex to kill any threats there. Jaden took the lead after Umbra 019, I followed close on his heels. We reached a cross path, Umbra 019 took a peak around one corner while Jaden observed the other. She gestured for us to move. We followed her down the tunnels until the next crossing where four guards awaited us. I nodded to Steph and charlie and pounced at the enemies knife in hand Jaden took out the one remaining. after we had stabbed them in their throat, we moved on to follow Umbra 019 once more. Suddenly she stopped us as we all heard the shouting of armed guards heading our way. She pulled out a throwing knife.

"engage on 3!" she ordered, we nodded and got into position they got closer and closer and closer

"3!" she shouted we all engaged the enemies but there were way too many, I threw in a lethal smoke grenade. And before long the smoke cleared to reveal dead bodies of enemy guards.

"right, I know its a defiance of orders but we'll ditch the guns when we are close to the nuke. Grab one of their silenced guns and ammo then follow me." Umbra 019 ordered. We reluctantly obeyed and grabbed a silenced MPC94 with some ammo. Once we had got our guns we followed Umbra 019 down the tunnels once more. Engaging and killing enemies and the alarms still remained silent. Eventually we got to the foot of the Nuke and we disposed of the guns.

"you should know your way from here, it's just up, I'll follow behind and help you out though" Umbra 019 said. Jaden nodded and both him and '19 fell back to follow my lead. I climbed up the set of metal stairs first. At about ¾ of the way there, a nearby guard spotted me, as I got all the way up he grabbed my head and slammed it into the bars of the balcony. I recovered and kicked him in the groin, as I went to kick him again he pulled out a knife and started swinging it at me I dodged almost all of them but one sliced through my chest piece. It didn't go any further than the armor thank god, but it had left my chest vulnerable. Suddenly Steph disarmed him swiftly, and grabbed his head in such a way that if he struggled it would only take a slight movement to snap his neck. By now 2 other guards where alerted. Jaden grabbed his knife and threw it at one, it hit him in the throat, he fell to the floor writhing in the pain of death. '19 had a throwing knife prepared for the other guard. And she was just waiting for the opportune moment. But charlie got there first and gauged his eye out with his knife. It wasn't a pretty sight. The guard must have died of shock as charlie squeezed his eyeball and threw it off the edge of the balcony. Stephanie snapped her victim's neck and we moved on to engage 2 more. Jaden picked up his knife from the dead body and readied himself. '19 threw her throwing knife at one, who died in an instant. And Stephanie kicked the other in the face, knocking him out. We climbed up to the second tier, which was empty.

"Jaden, stay here and guard these 2 tiers" '19 ordered. He obeyed and held his position. We continued up to the third tier with Steph in the lead. She ran along the walkway and searched for enemy activity. None, it was like they had all vanished, that's when I saw something strange; a small scale molecular distortion was following Stephanie. When suddenly She fell to the ground even she was in shock. the molecular distortion receded to reveal a very cleaver looking soldier, I couldn't help but notice the American flag she was wearing on her shoulder pad.

"what the fuck!" Steph gasped, the solider didn't hesitate to stab her in the side, where the armour was strapped together, there was no protection where the straps where. Steph held herself together and didn't cry out.

"who the hell are you!" the soldier shouted, she was definitely American I couldn't watch any longer. I ran over and kicked the soldier in the face, she lost balance and fell on her side.

"we are on your side you moron!" I shouted. She looked up at me in shock. Her lip was bleeding "same question or I might have to stab you in the side!" I said. Infuriated by her ignorance to our unit emblem and the American flag on our arms.

"Regina Griffiths" she answered.

"Don't kill her, she is on Team Rainbow. She is here to help" Liza interrupted.

"oh yeah because stabbing my team mate is a real help!"

"okay so she is a little over enthusiastic about it all. Get to know her and she will be fine with you"

"alright." I ended. She closed the comm link and I stormed over to her. She flinched In slight terror when I held out my hand. She grabbed it and I pulled her up.

"first off apologize and I'll act like that never happened." I ordered. She nodded and helped Steph up.

"sorry about that. No hard feelings?" she said.

"you were just doing your job" Steph said, ripping the knife out of her side. She groaned at the feeling of it but the pain in her voice seemed absent.

"are you okay Steph?" I asked.

"I've been better" she answered. She turned to Griffiths, "where's your team?" she asked

" on the Tier above, they are cloaked and they have taken out the rest of the guards. The goggles limit visibility, hence why I mistook you for enemy reinforcements." she said. I nodded in understanding.

"Any nuke damage?" '19 asked

"no, not that we know of anyway." Regina said in confidence

"good, so our work here is almost done." '19 added.

We held the nuke launch tower for about an hour, Acid appeared with his team and took over he had allot of EMP charges on him. I could see where it was going. We bid farewell to Regina and Umbra 019 and ran out of the gateway. we got back into Ginger's chopper and without a word she extracted. Once we where at a safe distance, she slowed the chopper down slightly.

"alright guys, we are almost out of this mess. There is a dock nearby which contains a carrier full of Iranian rebels heading to Russia over the Caspian sea in about 2 hours, the mission is really simple. I'll drop you off nearby. You will stealthily place a charge on the ship and when we are clear of the area, detonate it and that's that. You'll be inserted near Nowshahr and you will infiltrate the dock on foot. There is no need to fire your weapon all you need to do is sneak out and place a charge on the hull of the boat. Liza has put it down as a lone wolf for Jaden, so I will insert you where I just said and get the rest of you to your next objective." she said, she dropped Jaden off with a prototype variable combat rifle and moved off with the rest of us to our next objective.

"okay, the Turkmen, Russian, Iranian and Israeli leaders where meeting up to discuss what was going on and all the political shit. But the Iranian rebels seized the meeting, killed the Turkmen leader and captured the Israeli leader. To say the least the Mossad aren't happy. But they gave us some interesting intelligence. He is reported to be in a remote building not far from here. I will insert you a klick west of the building and you will make your way on foot. This is an extremely delicate operation. If the Israeli leader is killed you will all be gravely punished. After that, we will pick up Jaden and see what else comes along." she said. We nodded and equipped ourselves, I took an MPC94 with the suppressor and a silenced Gamma 4 pistol along with a couple of flash bangs.

As soon as we landed we spread out into a 2 group spread formation at a 100 meter spacing. I was grouped with Steph and Joe while Dave had Charlie and Amy. He ordered Amy to find a sniper position nearby and cover their approach. She was carrying a SSR56, a silenced sniper rifle.

He gave the move order and we moved out together at an attack pace for about 600 meters. By then I counted 2 guards outside of the hut we were headed for.

"sir, ROE?" I asked down the radio.

"fire at will, but keep it quiet."

"Copy that"

I aimed my gun at the first guard and Dave ordered Amy to take out the other. We both fired together, their deaths were silent. I kept moving so my fire team wouldn't slow down. I looked over to Steph, she was pale after her run in with Regina, her side looked no better. She had dressed it on the way over to suppress the bleeding but it still bled badly. I kept moving for another 200 meters and immediately lowered my stance into a head low roadie run. The HUD was pointing straight at the hut the guards where standing outside of. Dave reassembled with us.

"Burke get the door." he ordered

"yes sir!" I answered. I leaned up against the wall next to the front door, Dave began spacing the team out so they could back us up if anything went wrong.

I could hear the shouting and screaming of the rebels and the Israeli leader inside the hut. There was a cat flap on the door, I looked to Dave who was trying to find where he could put the smoke grenade without it being too obvious.

"Sir, cat flap!" I said to him. He looked down and moved it slightly to see whether is was bolted to the door, it wasn't. He pulled the pin on the grenade and rolled it through. The shouting stopped and confused chatter began, until the smoke initiated. They began coughing and choking. We all initiated our thermal cameras and opened the doors. We killed any rebels on our HUDs and cleared the area. Eventually the smoke cleared and we turned the thermal filter off. The Israeli leader looked up at us and smiled in hope. Charlie moved in and cut the bindings around his wrists.

"thank god you turned up." he puffed. He hadn't been harmed, but he was shaking and in shock.

"no problem, what did the other leaders say about the situation?" Dave asked.

"they said that the situation was well in control over at the Palace and the rebels have moved out of Turkmenistan. They where questioning, weather it was worth your time to stay here."

"until we know for certain, that things are looking good, we will always be here." he said. The Israeli leader stood up and followed us out of the hut.

"sir! Enemy contact! 200 meters to your 8 o'clock! Permission to engage." Steph said.

"go ahead." Dave answered. Steph shot and killed 8 rebels closing on their position.

"Ginger, how long are you going to be?" Dave asked

"not long, I am just about to pick Jaden up, there is a Humvee waiting for the Israeli leader about 500 meters south west of your position. Get him there and wait next to the hut, I'll be over in 10 minutes" she informed

"you got it." Dave said

We got the Israeli president and moved out heading towards Vector 225, south west. The Humvee was already in clear sight. We moved up to meet the driver and the Israeli president got in. the driver gave us the thumbs up and drove away.

We ran back to our initial position and waited for Ginger. She arrived 2 minutes late, but it didn't bother us too much. We climbed on as I sat down, I could see there was something going on between Steph and Jaden. They seemed uneasy around each other. But in a good-ish way. I could hear the chatter down Ginger's earpiece, she started talking with the co-pilot and asking him to observe the surroundings.

"nothing." he said to her. She nodded.

"Command, this is Firebird Zero Two Alpha Six. Negative, no count on AA sites. Ignoring caution and proceeding on with transport over." she said down the radio. I could hear the chatter start down her earpiece once more.

"take the stick." She said to her co-pilot. She turned to face us. "ghosts, we have reports of 2 howitzer 6 sites pounding nearby Russian tank divisions, the sites aren't heavily guarded but well hidden and the commander of each of the howitzers has thermal imaging equipment so try not to attract any attention, apparently Lithuanian forces destroyed one of the original 3 leaving 2 still active. One of those two blew them to small bits in a matter of seconds because they weren't quiet enough. You are to use EMP charges on each and set the Demo charges on them once the coast is clear. Once both howitzer sites are secure, detonate the explosive charges then secure the nearby village. Once both objectives are completed, wait for extraction or further orders" she informed. We acknowledged and she raced up.

We arrived in a ravine about 1 kilometer away from the combat zone, it was the only place Ginger could land us without the risk of being hit by one menacing Howitzer blast. The Howitzer 6 was a laser burst cannon, it didn't fire a projectile, it just fired a very highly concentrated beam of laser radiation, the result, although not seeming to be anything more than a large red dot according to most cynical civilians, was devastating. Such a high blast could disintegrate the armour on a light armored vehicle, and if used tactically with Sat Mirrors (Satellites specifically built to mirror the Laser radiation) they could be the most deadly weapon on the field. I felt a chill run down my spine, I had a friend in the army who was at the mercy of one of these howitzers he lost both legs and an arm. And he was the only survivor of 12 soldiers.

Amy looked up at the sky, seemingly looking at something on her HUD as she did. "there aren't any Sat Mirrors at low altitude. They must be on downtime." She said. I noticed she was carrying a massive rifle with a 6 foot long extended barrel and it was at least a 57mm projectile firing weapon. She attached the scope, pulled out a huge shell and injected it into the bolt feed system.

"Amy stay behind cover here. And keep an eye out for those satellites. See if any go to tactical positioning if they do, shoot them down, then move to another part of the ravine. Don't get killed okay?"

"got it, I'll try not to" she smiled.

"spread out. Burke, Steph with me. Jaden, Joe and Charlie make your way to the village on my mark. The second Howitzer has the whole village in check and is destroying nearly every friendly tank there. We'll head for the second howitzer first to allow you to pass through, then we will get rid of the 1st howitzer." reluctantly, everyone obeyed. I had a really bad feeling in my gut that this wasn't going to end well.

We marked the second howitzer as a way point. It was 700 meters away. We took a left flank on it to try and get around the back of it unseen. Dave gestured for us to spread out, even he was reluctant to leave our side, but he knew what he was doing. "combat spread" he added to his gesture. We amended our positions and prepared ourselves. I looked out across the field and saw a large amount of molecular distortion as a Russian T97 tank began engaging enemy forces in the small village we were meant to be securing, with a weird zap that hurt our ears, the tank was up in smoke, one of the howitzer commanders had used his head and hit the ammunition stock in the tank. No-one got out of that tank. I shook what I saw out of my head and moved on. About 100 meters from our target. I could see the commander of the 2nd howitzer, prancing as he was still celebrating that 'spectacular' hit on the Russian tank. Dave told us to hold position. What the hell was he waiting for? He looked at us to check we were still all right.

"Jaden change of plan; get to the first howitzer and set an EMP charge on a nearby tree or something that wont arouse suspicion, then tell us when you are ready to start the full on attack. We'll do this together so none of the commanders can radio in to each other or get suspicious when the other doesn't answer, there is allot of radio chatter between guns." he whispered down the radio just out of earshot of the enemy howitzer.

"roger that, moving in for take down." he said. His target was less than 300 meters away from him so he had to keep it quiet. We waited for his confirmation that the gun was down. Not once did we talk to each other, all of us where deadly focused on that gun emplacement and it's cocky sounding commander. The ear piercing zaps from the guns where giving us a headache, and the heat from the laser radiation was bothering us beyond the point of discomfort, I struggled to stay still but I tried my damned hardest.

2 minutes later, Jaden looked to be in position from the HUD.

"EMP ready waiting for your call boss." Jaden said down the radio. Dave nodded to Steph, who valiantly walked over to a tree near the howitzer and carefully set the EMP, she quietly walked back to her initial position and held the remote activation switch tightly in her hand.

"activate the charge... now!" Dave whispered. Steph flicked the switch and immediately the charge got to work. I could see the look of terror hit the commander's face as the howitzer's laser stopped dead as it was about to destroy another Russian tank. We quietly moved up with our gun silencers attached. We stopped in the perfect firing position and Dave laid out the plan, Steph was to take out the main gunner, I was to take out the guard and Dave took aim at the commander. With one swift move, we fired the guard and the gunner collapsed as soon as they were hit, the hard thud on the floor was enough to knock them out anyway. But the commander; his cockiness cost him, as he staggered back, a rock fell from under his feet and he plunged to his death down the cliff. Dave smiled menacingly as we advanced. Steph pulled out a demo charge and attached it to the main generator. Once she set it, we all moved back and awaited Jaden's confirmation.

"okay second charge set, sorry we were late we had a little trouble with the commander." Jaden said.

"good, detonate when ready."

Steph flicked the switch and pulled the trigger. Almost simultaneously, the 2 howitzers blew to shreds. I could hear some slight cheering from the village. But there was no time to savor the moment, we immediately entered the village but before we could even say 'hello there' Ginger appeared in our HUD

"Russian command has just informed us that they can handle the village alone and they owe you their sincerest gratitude for taking out those howitzers, meet me at the ravine and I'll get you out of here. Amy, destroy that sat mirror anyway, those bullets are like missiles, once they lose momentum they have fuel in there to keep them going." she said.

"okay, you got it" Amy replied. We all regrouped in the ravine where Ginger was already waiting for us. Amy shot the satellite out of action and met us at the chopper before we moved on.

"where are we going now?" Dave asked

"we just have to take control of the main supply route in Tehran and we are out of here, it's official, once that's done, the allies will have it covered from there and we can go home!" Ginger smiled. We all smiled and chatted amongst ourselves along the way to Tehran.

She landed on a high story building roof nearby our objective way point. Amy immediately took advantage of the view of the road, enemy troops where guarding a roadblock, she set up the sniping position. Ginger chucked Amy a zip line and some mines.

"what's the zip line for?" she asked with her eyebrow raised.

"quick escape, you might find you need to change your position if someone spots your position, that way it is just a simple zip down the line and you can find a new position." she answered.

"so remind me why this supply route is important again?" Dave asked.

"because the Israeli and Iranian defense forces and their allies can blockade the main routes that supply ammo to the enemy thus leaving the enemy vulnerable, that way should things go well here, we can pull out and leave the rest to the allied forces helping us out now. the enemy roadblock is currently stopping any civilians entering or exiting the city through that route, only ammunition going in and empty trucks going out are allowed through that route just to give the lowdown, it is heavily guarded, tanks trucks guys you name it. The terrorist leader is apparently in the area but you are not to take him out unless he is an immediate threat to you. just be careful."she answered, she moved off and we immediately found a way down to the ground, through a maintenance door and down the many flights of stairs, the building, although quiet, was occupied, it was an office building, on our way down the flights many office workers stared at us in disbelief and shock, but I didn't spare them a look In the eye, I had work to do. Once we where out of the building, Dave immediately spread us out, we all took cover around street corners, behind parked cars, anywhere imaginable that would provide even a bit of cover. We all looked to Dave to give us the orders. None of us had even thought to bring a rocket launcher for the light tank guarding the roadblock.

"anyone got an antitank gun?" he asked down the comm link. Looking to us all all of us on the ground shook our heads. "damn!"

"the ASR 32 has anti material capabilities, does that count?" Amy asked down the comm.

"yeah! good one Diaz, use your thermal imaging equipment to locate the gunner first, then the loader, then the driver, and finally, the commander."he ordered. "on my mark."

"Burke, get the machine gunner on that jeep and the sniper in tower 2." he said adding the Intel marker into my HUD I nodded to him. "Steph, get the driver of the jeep and the sniper in tower 3"

"yes sir."

"Jaden, kill the machine gunner in tower 1 and guard 4. Joe kill guards 2 and 5 but stay on standby if anything goes wrong. Charlie, kill guards 6 and 3 but keep a lookout for any activity in the immediate vicinity I'll take out guards 1,7,8 and the gatekeeper ." he said, everyone nodded to his plan. I immediately leveled my sights on my first target.

"as soon as Amy shoots, you all follow up, got it?"

"yes sir"

"okay, Amy... now!" he ordered immediately she started shooting, the tank's bodywork was no match for Amy's ASR32. Almost immediately we followed up, I shot my first target, the jeep gunner had started firing by the time I had silenced him, but he was panicked and his shots weren't accurate as a result. The sniper I was told to take out had got his sights on me, out of instinct, I slammed my back against the wall, just in time, the round hit the edge of the wall and If I hadn't moved, the round would have hit my head and I would have died, there was my chance, he was ejecting the brass from his rifle, but it seemed like it was jammed. I quickly leveled my sights for a quick shot. As soon as I had a bead, I fired, the sniper fell out of the tower and landed on his neck.

By the time I had finished killing my target the rest of the team was done. But even though we had secured the roadblock, didn't mean we were finished.

"sir! Reinforcement truck closing fast!" charlie called out, we all looked to where he had pointed, true enough, there was an open top truck carrying rebel reinforcements.

"alright, dont engage, we dont have the firepower to take them on!" Dave said. The truck had an armored turret that housed 2 machine guns that was the firepower issue, but I had another trick up my sleeve, I reached into one of my utility pouches and pulled out a grenade launcher, I attached it to my G709 and made an approximate aim.

"sir, I have a grenade launcher, will that help?" I asked Dave, he looked at me and smiled.

"go for it." he responded.

I adjusted my aim and fired at the troop carrier. The explosion was fiercer than I thought it would be, only one soldier lived, he engaged us but charlie shot him dead before any of us where hurt.

"sir ammo truck heading our way!" Steph reported.

"it's not moving fast, quick! Clear the bodies and assume a position in the roadblock. Lets take this truck down!" Dave ordered, we all got into a believable position at the roadblock ready for the ambush Charlie took up a position in the gate house and we waited. Within minutes, the truck pulled up. Steph sneakily set a demo charge on it and charlie casually let it pass. It drove up the street for about 100 meters then Steph blew the charge, the explosion was spectacular. No one survived.

We waited an hour for a few allies to take over the position. as soon as they came into sight, we puffed a sigh of relief. Ginger landed on the same building she inserted us from and we got in. we all sat quietly as she accelerated away from the mission zone. Once we where out of the way, she slowed down and told her co-pilot to take control. She turned to face us.

"right that's it, we are officially going home, I have to get this thing back to camp and loaded into the AC720 then that's it. Straight 14 hour flight back home" Ginger smiled. We all took our chest pieces off after a long while of wearing them, the feeling of air on my shoulders again made me feel so relieved, we laughed and chatted about our experiences on the mission. But our relief and happiness was short lived.

An explosion ripped through the back of the chopper, we all looked around in shock.

"what the hell was that!" Ginger shouted, suddenly bullets started whizzing through the chopper all of us tried to dodge the bullets. I looked around to my comrades, everyone looked okay, but I looked too soon, a bullet ripped straight through Stephanie's side, she fell into Dave's lap in agony. "Steph!" I shouted out in terror. As I moved towards her, another bullet smashed through the window and bounced around the chopper. "no!" Amy suddenly screamed out, an unbearable pain hit my head above my left eyebrow. I found myself, without warning, blank, everything was in slow motion. I looked to Amy unconsciously,she was calling my name it echoed in my head for a while she was shaking me gently, but even though could see her do it, I couldn't feel it, I looked to Steph, she was trying to get up but the wound must have been killing her from the strain. Out of no where the door on my side blew off. I eventually came around from the sudden bout of unresponsiveness.

"we are goin' down!" ginger shouted. Suddenly the chopper made an abrupt turn to the left, forcing me out of the open space the door was. I yelped in terror as I began my violent descent of around 100 feet I landed hard on my side, I heard numerous cracks in my arms and my sides. And the agony was no better than the sound, I cried out at my pain, but I made an effort to pull myself together. Slowly, I raised my head, nothing broken there. Numbly I examined my left arm, my bone was sticking out of my forearm in 4 different places, and my shoulder, was out of place. I looked over to the chopper, which was then a crash site. Something was up.

The tail, had just managed to hang on to the rest of the body, but I could see sparks coming from it. Out of nowhere, the tail suddenly exploded sending shrapnel everywhere, 2 pieces came my way.

I shot awake, I felt numb, but nothing hurt. I tried getting up. As I did, the crash site suddenly disappeared to reveal a beautiful landscape; flowers, grass a waterfall and the radiant sunlight.

"what the heck" I muttered to myself.

"you're in Eden" someone said. I turned around, a woman stood before me, she had reddish blonde hair blue eyes and was wearing old Crye mark IV armour from somewhere in the early 21st century she looked just like me, only not the hair. There was only 1 woman I knew of lived as a Ghost in those times.

"Jennifer?" I asked. She smiled in contempt. it was her. "what am I doing here?" I asked bewildered.

"lets take a look shall we?" she asked rhetorically, the crash site reappeared I found myself looking at my own body, lying there. Jennifer walked up to my body.

"let's see, both legs are broken, impalement with a pole from the chopper's fuselage, broken arm in... 4 places, a dislocated shoulder, broken ribs a burst lung, and is that a bullet wedged in your head? Also a pistol managed to hit you in the head." she said.

"holy shit!" I said to myself. Jennifer looked down to the right of the street I landed in.

"the terrorist leader is coming." she said. "the team has 10 minutes before they are killed. You are the only one who can save them, but you can't do that, dead." she added. I looked to the chopper wreck with a tear in my eye. Jennifer placed her hand on my shoulder. "you have 2 choices, stay here, wait 10 minutes for your teammates to turn up in a forever painless environment reuniting with Sarah as well. Or go back down there and have a crack at killing him before he kills your friends, it will be painful as hell down there and there is a chance you will end up back here again." she said. "but just for the record..." she added mysteriously. We found ourselves in the Ghost command room. I looked on the main screen it was focused on the crash site, my status screen showed the commanders that I was dead, it clicked, I knew why Jennifer brought me here. I looked to Liza, she was staring at the screen, desperately holding back tears.

"send out a rescue team for them, Acid is free, anyone just get them out of there." Liza ordered. No-on knew what to say. "NOW!" she shouted. I wanted to give her a great big hug, but before I could go anywhere, I found myself back at the crash site.

"you'll be missed" Jennifer said. I stood and though about it for a minute, stay in Eden and live a painless afterlife and be able to see my sister again, but be missed. Or go back down there, and kill that bastard, be in allot of pain and probably end up back in Eden anyway, but I remembered the promise I made to Cohen.

"I'll go back down there." I said valiantly. Jennifer smiled, she placed her hand on my back.

"this might hurt a little" she said. A sudden shock spread down my spine.

My eyes flickered open but before I could say hallelujah, agony spread around my whole body, i cried out and I found myself looking at the long pole at least 6cm in diameter, If not more. I whimpered as I fumbled with the quick release holster on my right leg to get my Gamma 4 pistol. When I had a firm grip on the gun I gingerly aimed at the leader coming my way. But I had no strength to keep the gun leveled on him. _Wait a little longer. _I let my arm fall to the ground, and I waited. Whimpering, trying not to strain myself in any form. About 2 minutes later I looked up to see him, standing nearby. I immediately reached for the gamma 4 but he stepped on my hand just as I had reached the pistol's grip. The grip of the boot was biting into the back of my hand, the gun's edges and the concrete stung my palm. As the pressure from his foot increased rapid darts of pain shot through my fingers. He stamped! A sickening crunch! I screamed in terror as the excruciating pain was accompanied by the flow of blood, my heart started racing, he had crushed my hand, I was bewildered. Finally his boot lifted away from me and met the floor next to my mangled hand. He pulled out a pistol from his holster and kept it by his side, he kicked me in the face, his steel toecap met my cheek. As my head turned the other way, I caught sight of the pistol that had flown out of the chopper, when the tail had exploded. I looked at the leader, he was aiming a gun at my head. I sucked up my pain and reached for the other gun, I knew that what I was about to to would make the breaks in my arm worse. But it was for my friends. I quickly and painfully leveled my aim on him and made a cheap shot at his chest, he was so shocked, he didn't see it coming. He fired back as a reflex, but it missed completely. He collapsed to the ground, dead. I lowered my arm through the excruciating pain and waited, whimpering, crying, dying. Sarah appeared, I must have been hallucinating.

"rest now, your work is done" she said in her typical soothing voice.

"I- I can't" I stammered through my pain, she placed her hand on my cheek, her hand was ice cold against my burning face.

"you can, just believe me, stay strong and hang in there.'' she assured. "close your eyes and relax" she said. I obeyed, I suddenly found myself pain free and relaxed. _Oh god no!_

I woke up to gentle stinging in my arm. And dull engine sounds in the background 2 medics stood next to me, one injecting something an another examining my responses.

"she's coming around. Better hope that morphine works quick" a medic stated. The other looked up to me.

"all dosed up." he assured me and his colleague.

"w-where am I?" I asked numbly. one medic moved away.

"you're in an AC720 on the way home, you got lucky there kid, real lucky." he answered.

"what about my friends?" I quizzed.

"one of the pilots died, another has sustained numerous chest and leg wounds, a team member sustained a serious perhaps fatal injury but they are still alive thankfully, another suffered a serious wound to the shoulder but they'll live and the rest only seem to have suffered moderate injuries." he said. I hoped to god that pilot wasn't ginger. "anyway, the morphine seems to have kicked in, I suggest you get some shuteye." he told me. I obeyed. Shortly after I was asleep. The flight was 12 hours long and as soon as we landed I was woken up and they immediately injected me with an anesthetic and I was taken into the operating theater to take out the pole in my abdomen, the bullet from my head, get the bones in my crushed hand into a place where they would repair themselves and recover and splint my broken limbs so many things where fixed in that operating theater. As soon as it was over, I woke up in my own room in my own bed, the drainage system sat on my bedside table. My hand was secured comfortably in a bandage, my abdominal wound from the pipe felt like it had been heavily dressed and bandaged, my legs both had supports on them I couldn't help but notice the wheelchair next to my bed either. My head had also been fixed up. I was so numb I couldn't feel my toes. Gently, I moved the quilt cover from over me with my good hand to see what I was actually wearing; a vest rolled up to expose my heavily bandaged torso, below that, I was wearing my favorite pajama trousers. After satisfying my curiosity. I moved the quilt back over me, rested my head back against the pillow and relaxed.

Someone knocked on the door just as I had closed my eyes.

"yeah?" I answered. The door opened and mum stepped into my room. Her injured shoulder still looked to be paining her greatly.

"do you mind if I sit and chat a while?" she asked. I nodded to her with a smile. She grabbed my old office chair and sat next to me.

"well as promised, I better tell you the dealio with that guy on my team" she said. I nodded and frowned slightly

"i hope you are prepared for whatever I throw at you here, well 28 years ago I was new to the ghosts, he was the first friend I made in the unit, friend turned to boyfriend, boyfriend turned to... well husband" she said awkwardly "and then 25 years ago, I fell pregnant, with Charlie, but at the time I gave birth I couldn't cope having a child I had just lost one of my closest friends rather gruesomely it turned out. The stress of a child wouldn't make me feel any better, I put him up for adoption in my home town, that's how I found the Quentins, Julia Quentin had been trying for a child for over 3 years with no luck. She asked about Charlie, I said he was still available, so the adoption forms where signed and Charlie was given to them, a more loving home. Once things had settled down, we tried again, Sarah popped out, then you popped out 2 years later, but I got attacked by terrorists in my own home, twice in the same year, luckily they didn't know about you two, I found it would be best for you two if I wasn't around, so Liza took care of you up until you where 16 and then left Sarah to take care of you. It broke my heart to leave you two like that, so just to let you know I was still there I popped in now and then and took you out to have a little fun but I always had my old friends with me to boost the numbers, as well as keep you two safe." she said, I could feel her sorrow just by looking her in the eye. She was bracing herself for the worst, I could just see it.

"so let me get this straight, that man is my dad?" I quizzed, she nodded.

"and Charlie is my brother?" I asked.

"yeah." she answered. She was really on the brink of grabbing a gun and shooting herself.

"sweet, whats my dad's name?" I asked out of interest.

"Alan" she said, I tried sitting up, but with a crushed hand, a broken arm and 2 gaping torso wounds, the morphine couldn't really help out there. I yelped as I tensed my stomach muscles the pain was excruciating. Mum quickly helped me into a sitting position, she looked at me in concern.

"are you gonna be alright?" she asked.

"yeah, dont worry about me." I assured.

After 6 weeks my legs were almost fixed up and I was allowed to walk around Fort Bragg for a while. The first thing I did, was catch up with my fellow team members. Amy had taken a serious injury to her left shoulder, it had been run through by a pole, similar to the one that impaled me. Dave, Jaden and Joe got by with a couple of head injuries and some psychological trauma they, where only just allowed to walk about themselves.

but Steph, the bullet wound in her side was potentially fatal, it was through and through hitting both lungs and only missing her heart by 0.6 of an inch. she had fallen out of the chopper when she tried to regain her balance just as it was about to hit the ground, so Dave told me, she landed hard on her right side, her head had hit a sharp piece of rubble on impact it had caused her some slight memory loss problems and confusion according to a nurse. To top it off, one of the chopper blades sliced through her leg leaving a huge open wound, when I went to visit her, she acted like it never happened, but the painful look in her eye was unmissable, but as I found out, she was a relentless fighter and didn't give up, her condition kept getting better and better every week. Ginger, had finally revealed her name to me when visited her, Janet Watkins. Like Steph, she wasn't expected to pull through alive. Psychologically, she was traumatized heavily. She told me that getting back in a chopper and flying it wouldn't be an issue, but another crash and seeing the person next to her mangled and and torn up, would hurt her psych so much that she would commit suicide the first chance she got. She blamed herself for the whole thing, but not once did she tell me to leave her alone. She enjoyed my company, so her therapist told me. And our friendship got stronger.

After 6 months, we had recovered and we were ready for what the world threw at us next. I had gotten my Medal of Honor and was told to wear it with pride, so I just wore it around my neck and let them click on to it, I had given Olivia's letter to Sophia, she accepted that it was bound to happen, but that distraught and shocked look in her eye at Olivia's funeral stuck out like a sore thumb.

I strolled down the corridors wondering what to do with myself, I had lent my games consoles to Steph, and my Gaming PC was boring, ever since I came back from Turkmenistan/Iran there was nothing to entertain me. So I just wondered Fort Bragg like a lost soul.

I caught site of Therese walking down the same corridor. She was in black cargo trousers, that shirt that hugged her torso and that signature red shemagh around her neck.

"hey" she greeted. Finally, some occupation.

"hi" i responded "where are you off? That gear makes me wonder if you are going somewhere" I asked she giggled

"nah, this is usually my indoor gear I'm off to the operating theater apparently, I'm having corrective surgery on my eyes and shit like that. Make me normal again in other words. What about you?"

"I'm going no where interesting, probably over to the Simulation room with the team later." I sighed.

"sounds fun, anyway, I gotta leave you to it, I dont want to be late as all" she said.

"okay, good luck, see you later" I said.

"thanks, later gater" she responded. We both went our separate ways. I got geared up and entered the simulation room, I had to stay ready to attack a terrorist or Neo-Facist group anywhere in the world.

But nothing prepared me for the sheer destruction about to hit us.


End file.
